


Dissembled

by imekitty



Series: Disparaged [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Gen, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2019-10-23 05:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17677310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imekitty/pseuds/imekitty
Summary: Danny endures captivity at the hands of his mother, all while she persists in a futile search for her son. Sequel to Disparaged.





	1. you were there

**Author's Note:**

> Summary of Disparaged: While out on patrol one night, Danny is apprehended in ghost form by his mother, who disables his powers using an injected solution of her creation. He manages to escape, but not without feeling very shaken by the ordeal. He tries to suppress the memory and ignore what it made him feel, but he is terrible at hiding it. Maddie at first believes he is struggling with a painkiller and narcotic addiction arising from severe depression and anxiety and tries to get him help, including therapy. Danny goes along with this story, hoping it'll prevent her from figuring out what is actually troubling him, especially as he notices her obsession with capturing Phantom has reached unhealthy levels. Maddie shortly realizes that there is something else more serious going on with Danny, but when she tries to force him to talk to her in the middle of the night, he runs out of the house. Maddie goes out to look for him but ends up finding him in ghost form. Not recognizing him, she proceeds to disable his powers again, chase him down, and corner him with no escape.

_You were there_.

No more wondering how long he could continue to outrun her.

...

"How did you find me?"

"Even God wants me to have you."

_Are you just as excited as I am?_

Ahead. In a hallway of the unfinished building he had run into in a futile attempt to lose her. Surrounded by walls he could not pass through without the powers she had stripped from him. With his back to her, Phantom stared straight ahead at the dead end he had run into. He remained motionless as she approached, did not even acknowledge her presence.

She walked close enough so he could hear the droning of her ecto-gun trained on him.

She had him. He was hers.

"Get on your knees, Phantom," she commanded coolly.

He shot a scowl at her over his shoulder, turned fully before she could reprimand him. Facing her squarely, he stared her down with arms out and palms toward her. A desperate final act of rebellion even in surrender.

Maddie gripped her gun tighter. "Phantom, I'm warning you—"

"If you want to shoot me, then do it," yelled Phantom. "But you'll have to do it facing me."

"Don't think I won't, Phantom. But you're much more valuable to me alive."

"Then just take me already. If having me means so much to you."

Maddie frowned and lowered her gun slightly. She studied him intently, his submissive yielding stance that was somehow still as cocky as ever.

"No fight at all?" she finally asked him.

His glare softened into something so sad, an expression she had seen many times before but never on him. Maddie sharply focused and tried to make sense of it.

"I just recognize that what I did was…"

His eyes clouded over and lowered.

"Irresponsible."

His tone was tapping against her heart, begging to break it in the most peculiar way. But also in a way she was certain she had felt before. But when? The recollection wasn't forming.

No, this was just what Phantom did. This was what  _ghosts_  did. He was trying to imitate something familiar to trick her. She couldn't let him.

"So just take me already," he rasped out with whispery cadence. "Because I can't do this anymore."

Maddie studied him for only a moment longer before detaching the Fenton Thermos from her belt and aiming it right at him. He raised his eyes just as she activated the device. A beam of light, a cyclone of sound. He stretched and narrowed and then disappeared. The hallway fell dark, his glow no longer present to illuminate its walls.

Maddie dropped her gun and held the Thermos in both hands, pressed it to her chest.

No more chasing. No more plotting. No more dreaming.

Phantom was trapped in this device she carried.

Phantom belonged to her now.

Outside. Back in the misty spring air lit by blinking stars. She walked away from the building, climbed over the fence warning against trespassing. Dressed in her night shirt and pants, utility belt slung around her waist, goggles perched on her head. Her car was parked quite a distance from here; Phantom had given her such a thrilling chase. But she didn't mind the walk at all. She hummed to herself, caressed the Thermos in her hands, leisurely ambled. The most relaxing stroll along the mostly empty streets of Amity Park.

Her car at last. She buckled herself in, carefully set her ecto-gun and Thermos on the passenger seat. She switched on the engine, shifted the car into drive.

But where could she go?

She stared out the front window, then down at the Thermos.

She had always planned on taking him home to the Fenton Works basement lab. But that would mean sharing Phantom with her husband. And Phantom was  _her_  property.

Plus, Jack seemed to think she had an unhealthy obsession with the ghost boy. What would he think if she told him she had gone out alone in the middle of the night without telling him and finally succeeded in capturing Phantom?

She had only left the house in the first place to run after Danny—

Danny! Oh, God, where was he!

She looked out either side of her car frantically, as if he'd just appear all of a sudden, as if she'd surely just happen to catch a glimpse of him running down the street.

How long ago? When had she last seen him? It was under two hours, right? They had been in the kitchen together. He was hiding something from her, had refused to unlock the secret texting app on his phone.

His secrets were hurting him. She had to know what his secrets were. It was her responsibility as his mother.

_And what makes you think my secrets are hurting me? What if you're the one hurting me?_

His last words to her.

And then he ran out of the house in an emotional tantrum, and by the time she was out the front door, Danny was gone.

She had to find him. She had to bring him home. She had to keep him safe with her.

She glanced at the Thermos.

But she also needed to secure Phantom. Somewhere she could do what she wanted to him without the Guys in White trying to take him from her. Somewhere without judgment from her husband.

She knew the perfect place.

Far past the other side of town, outside of any city limits at all, she pulled onto a desolate stretch of road and parked before an isolated steely building. She climbed out of her car and stared up at it, Thermos in hand.

A private lab belonging to Vlad. He had kindly allowed her to use it once for her own purposes, and since then, he continued to grant her access to the facility any time she had something she wanted to work on that she wanted to keep completely top secret, even from her husband.

And in this case, especially from her husband.

She tapped in a code on the keypad next to the door, hoping Vlad hadn't changed it. It beeped an affirmation and buzzed the steel door open. Of course he hadn't changed it yet. Why would he when he knew it made her happy to have access to this isolated lab? He liked making her happy. He had to cling to the hope that continually making her happy would bring her into his waiting arms.

She hated taking advantage of his desperate affection like this. But the asshole deserved to be used considering his own skeevy agendas. And what other choice did she have anyway? She couldn't take Phantom to Fenton Works, not when Jack would insist that she share him. Phantom was  _hers._ She put in all the hours and labor to capture him. She deserved to have him all to herself.

Inside the building, she flipped on a light and looked around. It was exactly as she had last left it. Did Vlad ever use this lab at all?

Perhaps all of the things she had left were still here, then.

She took off her utility belt and set it down on the main operating table in the room, placing the Thermos beside it. She couldn't let him out just yet, had to plan, had to get everything ready first. Once she released him from the Thermos, she'd only have ten minutes before he regained consciousness. She had in the past always planned for what to do with Phantom at Fenton Works and so had to figure out something new for this location.

Different place, yes, but that never really mattered. What mattered was that  _he_ was here with her.

She giddily steadied herself on the table. This was it. This was real. Phantom was in her possession, and he would soon be awake and know it himself.

Around the lab she went in an almost dreamlike state, reacquainting herself with all of the tools and solutions belonging to Vlad, the gadgets and materials that she had brought over herself months ago.

She had everything she needed here.

She picked up the Thermos with shaking hands, finger hovering over the release button. This was a beginning, an ending, the start of her greatest scientific pursuit and the conclusion of her relentless hunt for this boy who had been gnawing at her nerves and infesting her dreams for far too long now.

This just didn't feel real. After all this time, all her failures, did she really think she had succeeded, that she didn't just hallucinate cornering and capturing him? Would anything even happen when she pressed this release button?

Only one way to find out.

She uncapped the Thermos, aimed its opening at the operating table, held her breath, and pressed the release button. A reversal of sound, a burst of ectoplasmic light, and a spectral figure fizzling into view, a ghost sporting glitzy locks and stylish monochrome threads, a boy of indiscernible age who was usually so sprightly and poised with playful cockiness but now lay limp and unconscious before her.

It really was him. He really was here.

She combed her fingers through his hair. Chilled and gossamery strands twisting in tangle-free succession around her skin, just as she remembered it feeling only a week before when she had him trapped at gunpoint.

She worked quickly. She had to get everything done before he woke. The solution still coursing through him, the Fenton Ghost Solidifier, would continue to prevent him from turning invisible or intangible and discharging any ectoplasmic rays. But his most devastating power, his ghostly wail, required no spectral change in his molecules and could still be used in defense. She could easily muffle it with a gag, but that would just impede her research. She wanted him to answer her questions, wanted to get an accurate read of his reactions during procedures.

Her hand moved to the zipper of his suit. She latched on it for longer than she meant to, precious time ticking away, then pulled it down just low enough to expose the side of his neck. The pulses beneath his glowing skin looked so human, so healthy, throbbing with ectoplasm she could claw at right now. There was nothing to stop her.

She affixed an electrical appliance to his neck right up against his larynx, calibrated it and switched on its maximum setting to partially numb his vocal folds. No destructive wailing without adequate vocal power to support it.

The solidifying serum in his ectoplasm would last a few more hours, but she was not sure how long she'd be leaving him alone here. She of course planned on shackling him with anti-ghost material that would prevent him from breaking free, but it was always better to play it safe, especially when it came to  _him._  She could take no chances with Phantom, not when it took her this long to finally capture him.

She examined the compressor she had thrown around his ankle to neutralize his anti-gravity and flight abilities. Probably best to keep it on to prevent him from hovering.

Her eyes moved to his other ankle. She nodded to herself before grabbing a pair of heavy-duty scissors designed to cut through spectral material.

She bunched up the fabric around his left leg and poked a blade through it, taking great care not to nick him. There'd be plenty of time for that later, plenty of time while he was awake. She cut through the suit right at the divide between the black and white sections, sliced it all the way. She slid the white section a fair way toward his ankle, stroked the pearly hair standing on end all along his leg, admired the glowing vessels spidering under his skin.

She wanted to knife them all open now, watch his ectoplasm drip across him and pool onto the table.

But instead, she placed another device against his skin, inserted its needle into a vein to release a steady flow of the solidifying solution into his bloodstream. Now it didn't matter how long she was gone. He'd remain powerless.

She pulled the fabric of his suit back over the device and checked him over one final time. He was ready to be torn into. And she was so ready to tear him up. But she had to wait. It wasn't time just yet.

She pulled his zipper all the way up his neck, hiding the paralyzing device on his neck.

She'd pull it in the other direction soon enough. She had waited this long. What was just another few hours?

She hauled him off the table over her shoulder and brought him to one of the lab walls, propping him against it with a grunt. She had considered keeping him in a containment chamber, but something about that wasn't degrading enough. She wanted Phantom to feel like a prisoner, not just a specimen.

This idea was so much better.

She secured his wrists and legs into anti-ghost shackles fixed into the wall behind him. She adjusted the length of each, too little for him to relax on the floor, not enough for him to ever lower his arms. He could either stand or kneel. That was all the range of movement she'd grant him.

It was more than he deserved. He should be grateful she was allowing him this much range at all.

She stepped back to take in the full sight. A dangling marionette, arms hanging limp and chin dropped to his chest.

His hand twitched. Maddie quickly stepped out of sight. For now. She'd let him wake up alone, watch him react to his isolation and confinement. And then she'd make her presence known.

He remained lifeless for several more minutes, twinges jolting various limbs every now and then. His head then lifted, his eyes partly open as he scanned the lab. He winced, swallowed, attempted to move his arms, looked back at the restraints keeping his arms above him.

That look in his eyes, numbed stupor, dazed fatigue. Maddie smiled to herself, imagined just what was going through that dizzy head of his. Wondering where he was? Wondering where she was?

He'd find out soon enough. She certainly didn't plan on keeping him all alone in the dark for long.

His head fell forward with a drugged heaviness. He stayed completely still, as unmoving as before when he was unconscious. Some sort of ploy? Or was he simply resigned to his fate?

She stepped into his line of sight at last, slowly approaching him with even steps. He wearily lifted his head once she stopped walking. She studied him intently with crossed arms. He only stared back at her with a somber poker face, his eyes shifting in and out of focus.

"You had this coming, Phantom," she told him darkly. "You may have everyone else fooled, but you're still only a ghost."

His muscular definition ebbed and knotted beneath his suit.

"And you're mine now."

Phantom blinked once, slowly. "Congratulations," he said in a voice so thick and hoarse that he choked on the final syllable, coughing and swallowing, his neck noticeably straining. A perfectly delightful thrum of discomfort that indicated everything was still in her control.

She smugly tightened her arms against herself. "How's your throat? A little sore?"

He said nothing, didn't even move.

"That device on your neck partially paralyzes your vocal folds," Maddie explained to him though he continued to not react. "Can't have you using that ghostly wail of yours."

She moved closer to him, looked down at him on his knees, gently cupped his cold face with one hand. She imagined him stretched out on a table with barely room to even flinch.

"I expect you'll be screaming a lot, after all."

He remained unresponsive and motionless, his expression void, his focus diverged. He showed no indication that he was even aware she was touching him.

But he knew. And she was sure his powerlessness was breaking him up inside.

She gripped his chin and lifted his head so she could see him more fully. His brilliant eyes stayed lidded and directed into the distance, not looking at her at all.

Right in her grasp, right at her fingertips. Close enough to touch, to grope, to molest.

Anytime and anywhere she wanted.

And all he could ever do was just take it.

She caressed his jaw, his cheek, passed a thumb over his brow. But still he didn't react.

No matter. He knew what their arrangement was. He'd be responsive soon enough.

But for now, she had to leave him alone. Perhaps the totality of his defeat and capture would sink in during her absence.

"Well," she said quietly, wistfully. "As much as I'd love to stay here and begin working on you, I have to find my son." She broke contact with his skin and immediately missed the cool feel of him. She walked to the main operating table and picked up her utility belt, reattaching it to her hips. "But I'll be back."

_Don't you worry, Phantom. I won't ever leave you._

She took her goggles off her head to clean them and smooth back her hair. She picked up her gun and inspected it, checked that it was still adequately charged.

"Your son."

His voice was raspy and stressed. Maddie turned to him with a frown. If she had wanted to predict what his next words to her would be, she would've never guessed those.

"Yes," she said carefully, not sure why  _this_  would be the topic he chose to finally engage in. "My son."

She watched in baffled bewilderment as he raised himself from off his knees to a standing position, first one leg, then the other. His legs shook but otherwise held him up. His elbows lowered until they were just below his shoulder line, but his restraints kept his hands aligned with his ears.

"You say you have to find him," said Phantom. "Is he missing?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes at him fiercely. How dare he talk about her son with such casual intonation, as if he was merely curious. How dare he talk about her son at all.

But she had to keep control of her temper. Last time she had let her anger take over, she became careless and allowed him to escape. She wouldn't let that happen this time.

"Do you know something, Phantom?" she asked sternly.

His face finally changed to show expression. His lips tugged into the most infuriating smirk, irritatingly small and cocky. "I know you're not going to find him."

Maddie pursed her lips, exhaled through flaring nostrils.

"He's gone. And you'll never find him."

She recalled how Phantom had insisted he had interacted with Danny before, just a week ago when she had him cornered in that alley. Her blood rippled with the memory, convincing her brain that he once again had something to do with Danny's disappearance.

She stomped up to him with such speed and intensity that he reflexively pressed himself to the wall behind him, his arrogance temporarily vanishing into mild surprise.

"What do you know, Phantom?" she spat. "Tell me now. Tell me where he is."

"I have no idea where he is," said Phantom, his expression once again void. "But he ran away, didn't he?"

Maddie's balance faltered.

All she wanted to do was help Danny. All she wanted was for him to tell her what was wrong so she could help him.

 _God damn it!_ He had shouted at her just hours ago in their kitchen.  _I am not one of your research experiments! I am not something for you to study and hypothesize and test!_

Danny didn't really think she saw him that way, did he? It's just he wasn't talking to her on his own, so she had to figure him out somehow.

_Can't you just leave me alone?_

How could he ask such a thing of her? He was her child! She could never just leave him all alone to fend for himself, not when he was so obviously struggling and troubled.

_Can't you just let me have my secrets?_

Letting him have his secrets had brought them to this point. Now Danny was gone, had run off with who knew how many secrets torturing him and keeping him away from her.

"He did," confirmed Phantom coolly. "But he didn't just run away. He ran away from  _you_."

Her lips curled, tears bristling at the edges of her eyes.

_What if you're the one hurting me?_

Did he think she was hurting him?

He would so often pull away from her over the past week, didn't seem to want her touching him at all, wouldn't tell her he loved her when she expressed her love for him.

And when she had moved toward him, he backed away and bolted out of sight, out of the house.

Away from her.

She turned her head. She couldn't let Phantom see her cry, couldn't let him see any weakness.

"You'll never find him," Phantom asserted. "Because he doesn't want you to find him."

A snap, a flare. She raised a hand to strike him, smack him right across his face as hard as she possibly could. His eyes screwed shut in a vain attempt to brace himself.

She imagined hitting him so hard his skin broke, spectral capillaries in his nose shattering, ectoplasm speckling her hand and trailing down his neck.

But she couldn't ruin him now. She couldn't break her toy just yet. She wanted him unharmed and whole for later. It wasn't the time to wreck that pretty face of his.

She lowered her arm, her whole body quivering.

"I'm going out to look for him," she said definitively, her voice shaking just as much as the rest of her. "I'll be back to deal with you later." She pointed an aggressive finger at him. "And for your sake, you better pray that I find him."

She turned to leave, but he once again insisted on pissing her off.

He chuckled. Phantom actually decided to deliberately mock her by  _chuckling._

"Pray to who?" he asked with such an impertinent sparkle in his radioactive leer. "God? The same God who wanted you to have me?" He looked up at the ceiling with a mirthless grin. "I'm pretty sure God doesn't give a fuck about me."

If he seriously thought she was going to let him have the last word, he was gravely mistaken. There was no winning for him. There was no small victory he could gain over her.

She was his captor and owner. And she'd see to it that he learned to fear her.

She grabbed his suit collar and yanked him as far forward as she could against his restraints. His neck snapped back in response, his self-assured smirk disappearing immediately. She snarled in his face, stared right into his eyes framed by long silvery lashes, eyes so bright they blistered her own. When their intense luminosity started raising tears in her vision, she focused on the lower part of his face: the shimmery green flush painted across his nose and cheeks, the paling texture of his lips, lips so close to hers she could pick up on their oscillating tremors.

"As you'll soon find out," she said evenly, her words passing directly into his slightly open mouth, "I give even less of one."

She shoved the ghost into the wall behind him and stormed off before he could possibly muster the nerve to say anything more. She turned off all the lights, darkened the entire room, exited and slammed the heavy door leading into the lab shut.

Outside, her breathing was scratching and raw. She leaned back against the closed door and gazed up at the stars.

Was Danny looking at the stars, too?

She straightened up and turned her head slightly back toward the locked lab.

Was Phantom still standing? Or was he back on his knees?

It didn't matter. He would be waiting for her when she returned. Right now, she had to find her son.

_You'll never find him._

She walked to her car, allowed her tears to freely trickle down her face and under her chin.

_Because he doesn't want you to find him._

No. Phantom didn't know a thing about her son. He just wanted to hurt her.

Maybe Danny was already home. Maybe he was waiting for her to return.

And if he wasn't, she would never stop looking for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read this chapter from Danny's point of view, check out chapter 20 of the original fic, Disparaged.


	2. where were you?

_Where were you?_

She looked in and out and down and all around but never up because he definitely couldn't be in that direction.

…

He really liked his mattress. Such a nice firmness, so comfortable after a rough night that ravished his body and bruised his skin.

But he still had homework to do. School. He had to go to school. Couldn't be late. Couldn't get suspended.

School meant seeing Sam. Seeing her pretty eyes, her magnetic smile.

Those lips of hers, looking so soft—

A spasm in his arm brought his focus back. Danny gasped out with a forward lurch, but his restraints prevented him from getting too far. Still here. Still in this strange lab. Still chained up to a wall. Exactly where his mother had left him.

No, not where his mother had left him. She wasn't his mother. Whoever she was. The scientist.

The lab was dark. Only his dim glow served as a source of light, preventing him from seeing too much beyond his position. He wearily studied his one arm, then the other. Both were trembling and aching. Begging to be lowered, begging for relief from this fatigue. With a groan, he raised himself to a standing position, knee joints jerking and shins shaking. Ectoplasmic flow to his arms improved, but they were still much too high.

He attempted to turn intangible, invisible, human. Attempted to summon an ectoplasmic blast to break through the restraints. No response. Nothing. His molecules continued to betray him.

And his arms continued to  _really_  hurt.

He would down a whole bottle of painkillers just to make this go away. He no longer cared if he was addicted or not. All of his stresses this past week, all of the fretting and therapy and arguments with his mother, that all seemed so  _stupid_  now. None of it mattered at all when  _this_  was the end result.

He tried accessing his anti-gravity core. It refused to activate. He looked down at his ankle. That weighted band his moth—the SCIENTIST had thrown at him was still there, the band that had effectively shut down his flight abilities when he had been trying to get away from her.

And his other ankle. There was a pain on his other ankle he was only now just noticing. Under his suit. No way to reach it with his hands and examine it. He used his other boot to wrap around his ankle and kick at whatever was causing him pain. There was something there, all right. What was it? Whatever it was, it stung. He kicked at it as hard as he could, but the unknown device stayed in place.

His arms spasmed again, reclaiming his attention. He jumped as high as he could, tried desperately to somehow activate his anti-gravity core. The weight brought him back down immediately.

He pulled against his restraints, flailed and snapped and wrenched. Their anti-ghost metal ground into his skin beneath his suit, chafing and rubbing it raw. He cried, yelled, screamed, the device on his neck clamping on his vocal cords and stifling any destructive sound waves.

Then he fell silent, immobile.

His arms wailed and throbbed. His neck cramped and tensed.

Nothing changed. His chains were still bolted securely to the wall behind him. He was still here.

He couldn't leave.

All he could do was wait for her to return.

Wait for her to...to…

He didn't want to think about what she'd do when she came back.

What she would do to…

What she would do to... _him_ —

What she would do to him because she didn't see him as anything other than a specimen and artificial being with artificial feelings and artificial pain.

His cries and screams of agony would never touch on any of her sympathy because she would disregard them as counterfeit, nothing more than a ghost's pitiful attempt to appear human in order to manipulate her. He couldn't actually feel anguish, could only pretend to feel it. Let him pretend if it was his survival instinct. Let him pretend if he thought it might change her mind. She'd only enjoy watching him beg.

He was trapped. He was her prisoner. She was going to do as she pleased with him, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

Except…

He could tell her.

He could tell her who he really was.

But he had no power to change back. He was stuck in ghost form. He would have no way to prove it to her. Even if he tried spouting family secrets and personal revelations that only her son could possibly know, would she believe him? She was already convinced that ghosts were deceptive and did whatever they could to manipulate others. She would probably just accuse him of spying on her family, accuse him of stalking her son just so he could try to sell this insane story to her and persuade her to let him have his powers back so he could "prove" it to her and then escape instead.

He knew his mom too well. She wouldn't believe him. She would think he was just trying to trick her because that's just what ghosts did.

But…

What if she did believe him?

What if she believed him but…

...just didn't care?

_I'm your son. Please don't do this._

She'd press a hand to his forehead, push his bangs back so that she could study his face in its entirety.

_Oh, I see it now. You are my son._

His chest would swell with hope.

_But you're still a ghost._

She'd take her hand away and press a knife against him and through him—

His breath hitched and his body crumpled as low as his chains would allow.

How long had he been here?

How much longer would it be until she returned?

This all seemed rather surreal, like he was soft-locked in some sort of video game and completely unable to progress without resetting and starting all over.

But there was no way to reach the reset button here.

And this game would only progress once she respawned.

But until that moment, there was no hastening or side missions. He could only wait alone with his thoughts. Even if he could somehow calm his mind enough to sleep, he couldn't possibly get into a comfortable enough position to do so with these restraints.

His muscles and joints were locking and shivering and cramping, begging for relief, anything, everything.

Hydrocodone sounded so good right now. Just one pill. Or two.

Why had he surrendered his stash of narcotic painkillers to Jazz?

Why did that matter? Even if he hadn't, he  _still wouldn't have any right now_  God damn it he was just so  _stupid_ sometimes.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualize something he could put all of his focus on, a rolling ocean, a sparkling star...

Sam…

Did she know he was gone yet? Was it morning? Or was it still dark outside?

Thinking about Sam only stirred up emotion. He needed neutrality to pass this time.

A rushing river.

Curling clouds.

Streetlamps dying and shutting off.

A flickering flame

(bit by bit flashes of his reality to be suffocated)

burning all this away.

A loud scraping sound jolted his whole body, restarted the horrible clenching pain in his raised arms. More scraping from somewhere behind him, a door opening. Or he assumed it was a door. He couldn't actually see where the noise was coming from.

She appeared in his field of vision. The scientist. Remaining on his knees on the floor, Danny didn't meet her gaze. She was dressed in her normal jumpsuit, hood pulled tight over her head, orange-tinted goggles resting above her forehead.

He so wished she'd secure the goggles over her eyes. Anything to help him pretend she was someone else entirely.

She stood still for a long time, didn't say a word. She only stared at him.

He had been resolved to say absolutely nothing, to not respond to anything she might say. But now in this eerie silent stare down, he fought back the strong impulse to say something, to fill this void with  _something_. How long had he been here now? What time was it? What was she going to do to him? Why wasn't she doing anything yet? When was she going to do something?

He looked down at the floor and pretended she wasn't there at all. She could do nothing for as long as she wanted. Not like he was in any hurry for her to talk to him or touch him or slice him open.

In the meantime, he'd just do nothing, too. Not like he had any other choice.

She quietly stepped toward him and placed slender gloved fingers under his chin, raising and tilting his head toward hers.

"I was worried you wouldn't be here when I came back," she murmured. "I was worried that...I only dreamt that I finally captured you."

Bent over slightly, she held his chin and turned his face to one side, then the other, studying him from all angles. Danny simply allowed her to move him like a doll, acting as nonchalant as possible. Openly defying her and futilely trying to wrench himself away would only delight her, inflate her ego and engorge her with even more power. No, he'd much rather pretend that she was only an irritant and not someone he feared or had any feelings about at all.

Chest pounding erratically, he somehow managed to remain still.

"But you really are here." Maddie stood and smiled with such joyous relief, such a genuine smile containing no malice or sinister motives at all. Appearing like a completely sane and normal human being who was happily observing the first snow of the season. "I was worried for nothing."

Danny hated how happy she looked, how positively elated she was to be holding another living being in confinement like this.

And how could she possibly be this happy? Didn't she still think her son was missing? She had gone out to search for him and obviously hadn't found him. Wasn't she at least worried about  _him_?

Or maybe his fear from earlier really was correct. Maybe she didn't care about him as her son at all. All she cared about was torturing her new prisoner.

"You seem happy," he said slowly, breaking into a sudden coughing fit as the device on his neck buzzed against his bruised vocal cords. He had forgotten he was wearing it, had forgotten she had thought to cover all her bases. Not that he would've tried using his ghostly wail on her anyway. He could never bring himself to hurt her that lethally.

Maddie preened. "Of course I'm happy. You're here. You're mine. This is what I've been working so hard for."

"Does this mean you found your son?"

Her smile immediately fell, her face drooping as if she had just suffered some serious stroke.

Danny raised himself to a standing position, wincing at the pain in his knees as he forced them to straighten and support his weight. "You couldn't possibly be happy unless you found him, right?"

Maddie turned from him and began prepping the operation table in the middle of the lab.

"Oh, I see." Danny's voice croaked with a hoarse ache. "You didn't find him. But you're happy anyway. So I guess you don't really care about him at all, do you?"

Maddie was on him again with breakneck speed, her hand against his throat as she slammed his head against the wall.

"Do not mention my son in my presence again," she spat in his face. "Unless you know something about where he is, you will not talk about him here."

Danny held silent eye contact with her, wondering if she could feel his pulse through the hammering artery in his neck. Her eyes were quickly filling with tears. Was she crying over the disappearance of her son? Or was his glowing gaze just too intense?

She let him go. Danny gasped and let his head fall forward slightly.

"Here, it's just you and me, Phantom." Maddie walked around the lab and opened various doors and cabinets, taking out tools and equipment and machines and scanners. "I highly suggest you don't even think about what's going on outside of here. It'll make it far easier for you to accept whatever happens to you here."

She set some instruments on a stainless steel tray. Danny kept his head down, not wanting to even catch a glimpse of what tools she was planning to use.

"And I'll do the same." She paused, looked ahead distantly, vacantly. "This is my escape. All that matters here is you and what I can learn from you."

She was quiet and motionless. Danny tentatively raised his eyes to find her looking sadder than he had ever seen her look before.

He turned his head away and shut his eyes tight. She resumed gathering her supplies, and he resolved to just listen and wait.

Scraping, metal on metal. And then all movement and sound suddenly halted. Danny hesitantly opened his eyes to find her leaning over the observation table and staring at him.

Almost as if she had no idea what she was really doing or what she even wanted to really do.

But all this waiting around was starting to agitate him. The suspense, the unknown agenda. He knew it was going to happen sooner or later, so he just wanted to get it over with already. He'd rather just  _know_  what her plans were. Not knowing seemed far more agonizing.

He knew in the back of his head that he was wrong, that the waiting was so much more preferable and he'd soon be regretting that he had ever wished her to go faster. But the front part of his head was irritable and impatient and didn't want her to know just how much dread and fear he was experiencing.

"What?" he demanded. "What the hell are you waiting for?"

She glowered at him. "Don't you dare talk to me like that."

"Or what? You're gonna somehow make it worse for me?"

He pulled against his restraints and chortled, expecting her to storm over to him, to once again grab him by the collar or shove him against the wall threateningly. But she stayed where she was.

"You really don't want to test me, Phantom," she said calmly. "You really don't want to know the 'worst' that I could do to you."

Danny inhaled deeply but said nothing more.

She at last approached him, standing with a loose fist against her chin, her lips pursed.

"What?" he dared to ask as she once again decided to take her time.

"Just wondering the best way to get you onto the table," she said nonchalantly. "Your powers are disabled, yes, but you are still bigger and stronger than I am. I don't think I could drag you over there without you putting up a really good fight."

Danny smirked. "So true, Maddie. I'm not about to just  _let_  you drag me anywhere."

Her expression changed to one of warning. "Don't call me that."

"Don't call you what? Maddie?" Danny gave her an innocent smile. "Is that not your name?"

"Don't." Her volume raised. "You have no control here, Phantom. I'm not going to play any power games with you." She fumbled with something attached to her belt. "And if you try to play any games with me, you  _will_  lose. So for your sake, I strongly suggest you just give up."

"My sake, huh? So suddenly you're looking out for me?"

"Not at all." Maddie completely detached the object from her belt, a Fenton Thermos. "Just some advice if you'd like things here to be a little easier for you."

She pointed the Thermos at him. A bright flash, and then his vision blearily began to pop back into view. He blinked a few times as he tried to make sense of where he was now. The sight before him looked different.

A ceiling? Yes, he was looking at a ceiling.

And he was on his back, no longer chained to the wall, instead chained down to this table, his wrists slightly above his ears, his legs spread a comfortable distance.

The first feeling was relief. His arms felt  _so_ much better, no longer aching from strained ectoplasmic flow. And his legs as well, no longer having to support his weight. It just felt  _so wonderful_  to lie down.

But  _she_  was also here. Staring at him. His bristling nerves shook.

And now she was touching him, running gloved fingers over his face and neck and chest and arms and thighs. And all he could do was let her. He was once again completely restrained, unable to shy away from her wandering hands.

He could not win. The best he could do was not give her a response. Ignore her. Maybe then she'd get bored and give up and leave him alone.

Her fingers roamed along his lower left leg. She continuously rubbed against it, poked at the fabric of his suit, pinched and stretched it. Danny raised his head to try to figure out just what the hell she was finding so damn intriguing in that area.

"How is this possible?" she muttered to herself.

She was still prodding relentlessly at his leg. Danny watched her for a moment longer before laying his head back down and staring up at the ceiling while she continued to be weirdly occupied with the suit fabric of his left leg.

She moved. Her face was now in his line of vision. Danny gazed at her vacantly.

"How is your suit intact again?" she asked him.

Danny's brow creased. "My suit? What do you mean?"

Maddie huffed. "I cut the pant leg of your suit while you were still unconscious last time I was here." She returned to his left leg and clutched at the fabric covering it. "And now it's all in one piece again as if I had never cut it at all. How is that possible?"

"You cut it?" Danny lifted his head and stared at his leg, the prickling unknown pain he had felt earlier near his ankle returning immediately. "Now why would you do such a thing?" he asked playfully.

She looked up at him again with that familiar scowling glare. Danny smirked in return.

"I had to make sure that the Fenton Solidifier is always running through your system." She tapped a finger against the object he had felt attached to his leg earlier but was unable to kick off. "Can't have you regaining your powers."

"Oh, that's what that is." Danny let his head once again fall back on the table. "I was wondering."

"Answer my question, Phantom. How is your suit intact again?"

"I dunno," hummed Danny nonchalantly. "This suit gets ripped or torn or destroyed all the time, but it somehow manages to repair itself." He gave the best shrug he could in his restrained position. "Stranger things have happened. My suit having its own weird ghostly mending abilities is not even on my list of things I care to figure out."

"Well, it's certainly on mine. I'll definitely have to run some tests on it." She moved up to the top of the table again near his head and ran her fingers through his hair. "But you first, of course."

Danny couldn't stop a blush from rising and  _God_  he hoped she couldn't tell. But this contact was so oddly motherly and she looked just like his mother in this instant and he hated this so much he hated  _her_  how dare she make him feel so conflicted and confused how dare she make him miss her.

She pulled her goggles from off her head and fixed them over her eyes. The conflict abated. Now she definitely wasn't his mother at all, just a faceless scientist.

Now maybe he could deal with whatever she was going to do next.

She moved behind his head and shuffled some instruments around on the tray she had set up. She returned with a pair of heavy-duty scissors. Danny's eyes instantly settled on the sharp blades as her own gaze traveled up his body to the base of his neck.

Her gloved fingers grasped at the zipper of his suit collar. Danny could feel another blush settling in his face, his arms automatically trying to move to stop her.

"We're just going to start out easy, Phantom." She lowered the zipper down his torso. "We need some baseline vitals." She moved the now split fabric of his suit, pushing it aside to expose his chest. "You don't need to worry about anything right now. I'm not going to hurt you right now. In fact, I won't be hurting you much tonight at all."

Danny furrowed his brow as she began cutting and slipping pieces of his suit away without removing his restraints.

"And I'm not going to take all of this off. Just the top half. Nothing too invasive right now, okay?"

His confusion only deepened. Why was she telling him this? Why was she trying to reassure him?

His arms and chest and abdomen were laid bare. Maddie put the removed pieces of his suit on a counter before returning to him. She watched his rising and falling chest for some time before looking at his face. "How are you feeling right now?"

Danny stared at her. "How am I  _feeling_?" He crowed mirthlessly. "I feel great. Really, no other place I'd rather be than strapped down to this table."

Maddie smiled at him. "I'm so glad you feel that way. There's no place I'd rather you be either."

She patted his shoulder before moving behind him again. Danny worked on getting enough air into his lungs. Why did it feel as if he wasn't getting enough? Or as if he had to think to breathe, like his body had quit on him and was making him do everything on his own?

She reappeared by his side, pulling up the instrument tray with her. He didn't dare look to see what was on it.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm really not going to hurt you right now."

She wrapped a cuff around his right upper arm, securing it with velcro before pressing a button on the device it was connected to. The cuff began tightening instantly amidst humming and whirring from the device. Danny kept his eyes up on the ceiling.

The device signaled its job complete as the cuff loosened. Maddie observed the results on a screen.

"You are nervous, aren't you?" she asked him as she scribbled something down on a notepad.

Danny did not reply.

"I need you to be as calm as possible. Remember, I'm not going to hurt you right now. You'll be fine tonight."

Oh, was that why she was trying to be so reassuring? Because she wanted to get some readings while he was calm? Was she planning on comparing them to later when she was burning off his skin or cutting open his neck?

"I see." His mouth curved in a snarky smile. "You need me to be calm. And you're just expecting me to do whatever you tell me to do, are you?"

"Well, if you want this to be as easy for you as possible, yes, I would highly recommend that." She placed a couple fingers against the artery in his wrist.

"Easy as possible for me? Really?" Danny rolled his eyes.

"Don't be rude, Phantom," reprimanded Maddie. "Just trust me when I say that I can make things much worse for you depending on how well you behave." She checked the time on her watch. "Now hush. I need to measure your pulse."

"Oh, so I shouldn't distract you? Or move my arm?"

Danny jerked his wrist, causing her hold to slip. Maddie lightly slapped his face.

"You don't want to do this, Phantom," she said sharply. "You really,  _really_  don't."

"Don't tell me what I don't want to do," he shot back.

"I swear to God, I will inject you with a muscle relaxant. Then you won't be able to move at all. Not even breathe on your own. And so I'd have to shove a tube down your throat so you don't die on me. Really not what I want to do right now, but is that what  _you_ want, Phantom? Because it seems to me that you're begging for it right now."

Danny glared at her but said nothing. Her fingers were against his artery again. Muscles in his head clenched as he kept his arm relaxed and still.

"Try to calm down," she said. "I think you're angry right now."

He so wanted to snap at her, but he instead drew in a shaky breath and turned his head away from her completely as her fingers stayed pressed against his wrist.  _Damn right_  he was angry and agitated and frustrated and just  _why_  was this happening to him how had he let this happen why couldn't this somehow just be one of his nightmares again why did this have to be real?

He shut his eyes and focused on breathing. Her fingers were still against his skin. He waited and waited and waited for her to release him as he tried to just forget that he was here at all.

She finally let go. "Good. Took a while, but I think I got a good enough reading. I can't expect you to be perfectly calm, I suppose."

Danny opened his eyes, temple muscles tightening and veins swelling as he stared across the room at the wall while listening to her grab whatever it was she planned on using next.

She shoved something into his ear. Danny immediately jerked his head away. Maddie pinned the side of his face down to the table.

"I'm just taking your temperature," she informed him coolly. "Not the most accurate way, of course, but I'm not doing anything invasive tonight. So again, just  _relax_ , Phantom."

The thermometer was placed in his ear again. She studied the results on the instrument and made a small clicking sound with her tongue.

"You're quite a bit warmer than most ghosts." She looked down at him with a frown. "Most ghosts average about eight degrees Celsius. You're almost fifteen degrees. Why are you so much warmer?"

Danny gave an apathetic shrug because he quite honestly  _didn't_   _know_  and more importantly  _didn't care_. He didn't even know what the hell fifteen degrees Celsius meant. He couldn't remember how to convert that to Fahrenheit because he was just that stupid and terrible in school but now all of that homework and studying had been completely pointless because he was going to die in this lab. He was never going to return to class or graduate. His whole life had been meaningless, a huge waste of everyone's time.

"You're different." Maddie set the thermometer back on the tray and wrote down some notes. "This is why you're here, though. This is why I've been needing you. You're not like other ghosts. You must be some sort of special link. You must have the answers to my unanswered questions."

Danny said nothing. He really wished she'd stop talking to him already.

More small tests, more devices pressed to his skin or placed on his finger. Danny stayed motionless and allowed her to do whatever she wanted. Not like he could stop her anyway.

He gazed up at the ceiling, this completely foreign ceiling.

"Where are we?" he asked quietly with little inflection.

Maddie looked up from her notes. "Hmm?"

"Where we are. This lab. Whose is it?" He turned his head to her. "This is not your lab at Fenton Works."

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "You know my lab that well, do you? Just how long have you been sneaking into my house, Phantom? Stealing my supplies, tampering with my equipment and scanners. I was wondering who'd been getting into my lab and screwing around with things, but the video surveillance had always been erased."

Danny said nothing.

"But it was you, wasn't it? This whole time. I should've guessed. This is why my scanners don't pick up your ecto-signature, isn't it? This is why so many of my Thermoses are missing. Or why one tube containing the cancelling agent for the Fenton Solidifier was missing. It's always been you."

Danny still said nothing.

"But you're right." Maddie gestured to their surroundings. "This is not my lab. We're nowhere near Fenton Works. We're not even in Amity Park anymore." She hastily scrawled some notes as she spoke. "This lab actually belongs to...well, I don't know if I'd call him a friend. We certainly used to be friends, but things have been strained between us. But he has graciously allowed me the use of this private lab, so I guess I shouldn't be so hard on him."

Nothing but the sound of pen scribblings for a while. Danny's eyebrows lowered in thought.

"Vlad Masters?" he finally asked, his vocal cords spasming with pain from the paralyzing device affixed to his neck.

Maddie eyed him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

Danny kept his gaze directed at the ceiling.

"Is it just me you spy on?" asked Maddie with slightly raised volume. "Or do you spy on everyone in our town? Gleaning information so you can use it to manipulate us? Play on our emotions?"

"I don't spy on anyone."

"Then how could you possibly guess that I was talking about Vlad Masters?"

He opened his mouth a couple times to respond but eventually gave up and only shook his head.

"I suppose it's not entirely your fault, is it?" Maddie pursed her lips as she looked down at her notes. "You're compelled to do whatever you can to satisfy your ghost obsession. You literally can't stop yourself from doing whatever it takes." She set her notepad on the tray. "And I suppose that entails spying on people, perhaps especially on people like me who are a direct threat to you."

Danny did not move or speak. No use. Anything he said would never convince her otherwise.

She picked up a stethoscope and stuck the tubes into her ears. She leaned over him and gently placed the diaphragm of the device against his chest, pressing it to different parts of his bare skin. One hand guided the bell of the stethoscope, the other trailed absently over his upper body.

Such gentle movements, such delicate caresses that felt almost soothing. Danny wanted to close his eyes to try to drown all this out and yet he had to keep them open or else he'd start confusing this woman and her comforting touches with his mother and he just couldn't have that.

He kept his eyes open but tried to focus on nothing, blur the lights and her face by diverging his focus.

The metal of the stethoscope felt cold. His body felt cold. Strange since he never usually felt cold in ghost form. Shivery quakes seized his arms and chest. He attempted to control them, to physically still them.

"Take a deep breath, Phantom," said Maddie quietly.

He blinked and allowed his focus to converge on her face still covered with goggles.

"Deep breath, come on," she ordered again more firmly, pressing the stethoscope into his skin.

He paused a moment more before drawing in a breath that shook his lungs so deeply his eyes actually teared up. But that was okay. It just made things blurry and that was just fine.

"Another deep breath." She moved the metal diaphragm to another part of his chest.

He obeyed. For himself, not for her. He had already been feeling like he wasn't getting enough air anyway. He opened his mouth slightly and inhaled, gasping audibly with the effort, a couple tears breaking free and traveling down his face onto the table.

The stethoscope diaphragm remained pressed to him a little longer, then Maddie moved it away. She studied his face in silence for some time before gently brushing his tears away with a couple gloved fingers.

"You are really afraid, aren't you?" she murmured.

Danny stared at the ceiling.

"Or I should say…" She set the stethoscope back on the tray. "You're very good at displaying fear. Very nice imitation, Phantom."

His veins prickled with heat. He shot an incredulous glare in her direction. Maddie caught his look and smiled.

"Well, isn't that what you want to hear?" she asked him flippantly. "Hasn't it been your goal to win the people of our town over? To convince all of us you're as human as we are?" She shrugged. "I'm just letting you know that your displays of emotion are very authentic. It's quite a compliment for a ghost. I've never seen any other ghost portray emotion so well."

Danny grimaced and turned his attention back to the ceiling.

"But it won't work," said Maddie. "I'm not going to stop what I'm doing just because you're so good at acting afraid."

She leaned over him again, this time with a surgical lancet in her hand. Danny's heart lurched at the sight, but he managed to let it manifest with only a twitch in his arms and shoulders. She moved the blade toward his hand.

"What are you doing?" he demanded in a voice that still managed to sound shrill despite the vocal paralyzer on his neck. He jerked his hand enough to make her pause.

"The last thing I'm doing tonight," said Maddie calmly. "I need to get an idea of your healing abilities."

Danny didn't have long to stare at her before her knife successfully dug into his right palm and split it deeply, ectoplasm quickly rising and trickling down his hand. He cried out as his hand spasmed. Unsure whether to clench it or stretch it out, no idea what motion on his part could possibly alleviate this pain.

"What the hell?" he snapped. "You said you wouldn't hurt me tonight!"

"If you were  _listening_ , I said I wouldn't hurt you  _much_  tonight."

Danny balked at her gall, as if he was supposed to just be okay with this because she  _had_  warned him and he just hadn't been paying close enough attention.

"And this isn't  _much_  to you?" He flailed his oozing palm, flinging drops of ectoplasm onto his cheek.

"Not at all." She made another cut in his forearm, one that thankfully wasn't quite so deep and didn't hurt as much. "I've injected you with a new strain of the Fenton Solidifier. This one inhibits all ghostly molecular changes  _except_  for your enhanced ability to heal. But I want to see if it works before I do anything to you that might be irreversible."

She pressed the knife into his shoulder and sank it in hard. Danny stifled a gasp but could not stop his eyes from tearing up. He caught sight of a smirk tugging at Maddie's mouth, which only misted his eyes more.

"I really don't want to be breaking you too soon, after all," she said in a low voice. "So I'm just going to try out a variety of incisions here and see how well they heal by tomorrow. That will help me work out a plan for what to do with you next."

The injurious incisions continued, nicking his skin and drawing out ectoplasm, slitting his nerve endings and rattling them with pain. Danny shut his eyes tight as she carved into the other side of his arm and down his side. His clenched teeth and firmly pressed lips betrayed him over and over, letting out small whines and hisses of weakness.

She finally stopped. Danny lifted his head and tentatively opened his clouded eyes to see her walking over to the other side of the table. He let his head fall back in disbelieving dread. Wasn't one side of him enough for her to get an idea of his healing abilities?

His breaths were coming short and fast. His lungs never seemed full enough.

"Why do you keep trying, Phantom?" asked Maddie as she pierced the anti-ghost blade into his left side, drawing another cry from his aching throat. "Why do you keep trying to display this emotion for me? I already told you it won't work."

The blade moved up his side, gashing a new reservoir of ectoplasm. He was feeling dizzy despite lying down.

"You may be used to manipulating others into doing whatever you want with your teenage heart throb charm and those expressive eyes, but your ghost tricks won't work on me."

Adrenaline came in a quick rush, dulling his pain but causing the incisions to overflow with spectral fluid.

"I know you're trying your hardest to make me feel sorry for you." Maddie made another nick near his collarbone. "You're trying to tap into my motherly nurturing side so that I'll maybe let you go. But your whimpering and crying isn't going to make me stop."

Another incision. This one really stung, burned even. But rather than yelp, he clenched his jaw and glared at her, causing her to momentarily pause and stare back at him.

"Your motherly nurturing side," he gasped out dryly. "You really think you have one? Are you motherly and nurturing with your family? Your  _son_?"

Maddie's eyes flashed, but Danny was only emboldened to continue.

"Is that why he ran away from you? Because you were just so loving and nurturing to him? Is that why you still haven't found him?"

"I told you not to talk about my son."

"Is this how you were with him? Is this what you'd say to him? That you don't want to hear his crying? That his objections won't stop you or change your mind?"

"Phantom—"

"That he can't win with you so he might as well not even try? That you have the final word on everything and he has to surrender to you because you're in charge?"

She cut his arm so deeply that it was more like a stab. But he just couldn't shut up. He  _wouldn't_  shut up.

"That he can't keep any secrets from you?" he blurted in a delirious rage. "That it's your job to figure out his secrets? Your obligation to him as a parent?"

His head was swimming. Strange glows danced in his murky vision.

"Just like it's your obligation as a scientist to discover my secrets, right?"

Was his body floating? Had he managed to engage his anti-gravity core? No, wait, he could still feel the table under him.

She split his left palm open. Pressure pushed hard behind his eyes in response, attacking them with tears he couldn't hold back, tears that quickly fell down his face and filled his ear.

"Was that all he was to you, too?" His mouth filled with saliva. He swallowed it down past sore glands. "Just a research experiment for you to interrogate and figure out?"

"Don't." Maddie's voice shook. "Don't say anything else, Phantom. I won't tell you again."

"Or what?" Danny tipped his head to get the moisture out of his ear. "What will you do to me if I disobey? Cut me open? Keep me locked up?"

He clenched his hand, ectoplasm weeping from the fresh gash between his fingers.

"Is that what you did to him? Made him your own prisoner? Forced him into obedience under threat of punishment?"

Her goggles were directed right at his face, the surgical lancet still wielded in her hand. The final moments he had with his mother as himself played through his mind.

The last thing he had said to her before he ran out of the house.

_What if you're the one hurting me?_

If he had to hurt, she had to hurt right along with him. It was only fair.

"That's why he's gone," said Danny. "That's why he ran away from you. So that you couldn't hurt him anymore."

She bolted, hovering directly over his face, the tip of her lancet pointed directly at his left eye, so close he could not even focus on it properly. He tried to back away, tried to blink and shut his eye to somehow stop the knife point from getting any closer.

"I said I wouldn't hurt you much tonight," said Maddie amidst shaky panting. "I said that. And I meant it. But I will not tolerate this blatant disrespect."

She moved the lancet over his face, the bladed point hovering just above his skin, eliciting uncontrollable winces from Danny. He stayed completely still as the sharp edge brushed his eyebrow and temple and upper lip.

"I  _am_  a mother, Phantom," said Maddie a little more calmly. "And as a mother, I must address misbehavior. If you insist on misbehaving, then I will punish you. And I have to show you from the very beginning that I mean it."

The blade passed close to his left eye again, causing it to water and rapidly blink in response.

"Your actions have consequences," Maddie continued. "Your time here will be unpleasant no matter what—I will not lie to you—but just how unpleasant is up to you."

The knife swept through his hairline and along his ear and down his jaw and up his chin and along the bridge of his nose before settling once again right at his left eye. He trembled and tried to recoil with nowhere to go, his lashes fluttering violently, torn between shutting his eye in protection and keeping it open so he could keep track of the blade tip.

"Interesting," murmured Maddie. "Most ghosts don't react this way. Even when their powers are disabled, they do not have this reflexive instinct to protect their eyes. With their natural ability to turn intangible and their virtual invincibility, they just don't need it."

She swiveled the blade directly above his cornea between his lashes. Danny continued to keep completely still, locked in place.

"But you. Your reaction. It's fascinating. You really are so humanlike. We humans respond very adversely to things getting too close to our eyes as well."

She placed a hand on his face and pinned him down. Lancet still poised in her other hand, she used her fingers to press against his left eye and pry it open.

"This is your own fault, Phantom."

As her knife approached his eye, Danny could hear nothing but rushing ectoplasm in his ears.

This could not be real this could not be happening this could not actually be a real honest to God thing he was going through he was being subjected to being forced through taken through.

A strike tore half his vision, darkening it immediately. Vibrations buzzed through his nerves, coiling in his chest and knotting tightly.

His eye, the feel of its soft tissue rupturing and ripping apart, ectoplasmic fluid spraying and dripping, splattering onto her goggles and her gloved hand, surging down his face in a stream that drenched his cheek and jaw and neck and trickled into his mouth, coating his teeth with a slimy film and assaulting his tongue with acrid ice.

The pain, the sickening burn centered in his eye, in front of it and behind it and completely around it. A sparking shock pulsated through his cornea and iris, pumping out ectoplasm in arrhythmic procession, thrusting in violent discharges and draining the socket dry.

He was screaming. He could feel it shaking his vocal cords that throbbed and bobbed against the paralyzing device on his neck, the suppressed strains of his ghostly wail trapped in his searing throat. But he heard nothing. Everything was silenced, deafened.

The lights above him were getting brighter and unfocused. And hotter. They were all blurring together and changing positions and coming closer and melting his quivering flesh.

His veins were filling with a fever that circulated in erratic strokes.

A seizure was pressing hard behind his left eye, about to pop it out altogether.

The lights above were now fading, blacking out in fizzing sparks.

A constant shrill ringing resounded in his ears.

And he was sinking beneath the table but also floating toward the fading lights.

_this is your own fault_

The lights were back. The ringing was gone. All he could hear was the shuffling of Maddie's jumpsuit against the table as she poked and prodded at the wounds she had inflicted on the right side of his body. Wasn't she just on the other side of the table? When did she move?

He blinked his unharmed eye a couple times. His left eye was stinging and blistering, as if something was lodged in it, something that he could not even try to blink away. He was unable to open that eye at all, forced to keep it screwed shut.

He turned his head to spit out the lingering ectoplasm that had burst from his eye and traveled past his lips. But the sharp foul taste remained. He ran his tongue over his teeth, which felt slick with the caustic fluid still clinging to them.

His throat ached even more now than it did before. He swallowed a few times to try to alleviate the pain or at least coat the sides of his sore airway with saliva.

And  _her._

There was something odd about the way Maddie was touching him. Danny weakly flopped his head over to see that she appeared to be cleaning and tending to the lacerations all along the right side of his body.

"What are you doing now?" he moaned in a whisper.

Maddie didn't even look at him as she continued to work without a pause. "I'm dressing your wounds on this side. Then I'll compare them to the undressed wounds on the other side. See if they heal differently or more quickly, more effectively."

Danny made no reply, did not move his head again. He stared past her as she worked.

She finished and took her tools and equipment out of sight behind him somewhere. Running water from a sink, cabinets opening and closing. Danny continued to stare ahead, relieved to finally not be the center of her attention.

She drew close to him again, the sound of her footsteps causing his breath to catch and his body to stiffen. She held a wet towel and gently wiped away the spilled ectoplasm around his eye, on his cheek, in his ear, down his neck. Small circular motions, moderate pressure. Reminded him far too much of someone he didn't want to think about, another woman who used to clean his face so affectionately when he was smaller.

She cleaned the table around him, spraying it with disinfectant and lifting his head to make sure she didn't miss a spot. Then she hovered over his face, staring down at him for some time. Her gloved fingers rested delicately on the side of his head near his wounded eye, turning him toward her a little more. She removed her goggles and placed them on top of her jumpsuit hood. Danny lowered his gaze.

"I really wasn't planning on doing this," she said.

Her thumb softly passed over his eyelid that could only tremble in response, his broken eye swollen and tender behind it.

"But I guess sometimes the best ideas are unplanned." She smiled down at him. "I'm really interested to see if you are able to heal this, Phantom."

He refused to look at her, one eye completely useless, the other directed at the far wall.

She broke contact with him, and then she was gone, the lights turning off and a door that he couldn't see audibly closing. His glow was once again his only source of light.

She was gone. He was here. She was off to sleep in her own bed and be with her family while he had to be restrained to this table in all this pain with no way to dull it.

Painkillers, narcotics, opioids, he wanted to down everything and never wake up.


	3. did I ever really leave?

_Did I ever really leave?_

He could never get away from her. Nowhere to go and everything to feel.

...

The sun would not be rising for a few more hours. She had enough time to get some sleep before her husband and daughter woke.

But how could she sleep when her son was still gone?

Maddie entered the darkened house and shut the front door behind her as quietly as she could, praying that maybe Danny had come home while she was out, that maybe he had decided to return all on his own.

The police were pretty convinced he'd come back eventually. She desperately wanted to believe that, too.

She searched the whole house, hoping to find him somewhere, anywhere. She stood in his empty room, stared at his empty bed.

Still gone.

She was exhausted. She hadn't slept at all the previous night. If she wanted to have a clear mind to properly search for Danny, she simply had to get some sleep.

She moved to the window and stared out at the night sky. She wondered if Danny was sleeping right at this moment.

She hoped he was safe and comfortable. Wherever he was.

Maddie slipped into bed beside her husband, not disturbing his sleep even a little. She had no idea how he could sleep so soundly when their son was still missing.

The bed felt hard and cold. Her stomach was knotted tight. So exhausted and drained and yet sleep just wouldn't come to her.

And thoughts of someone else kept trying to creep into her mind, someone strapped down to a table with nothing else to do but wait for her to return. His wintry hair tousled and his chest completely exposed just begging her to tear into it.

_No_  she wasn't allowed to think about Phantom now. This was the promise she had made to herself. When she was in Vlad's private lab, she had resolved to think about only Phantom and not her son. No stress, no worries, just her hard-earned prize.

But when she was home, it was all about Danny. All about finding Danny. No Phantom. That had to be the trade-off.

Maddie pulled her knees up close to her breast and nuzzled her face into her pillow, tears trickling and dampening the fabric.

Until she found Danny, Phantom would have to be her only escape from this crushing loneliness.

The hours passed. If she had managed to fall asleep at all, she wasn't sure. She couldn't remember any dreams. But the sky was lit again, and she couldn't waste any more time in bed regardless. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to massage some energy into them. Had she even brushed her teeth or washed her face the night before? She couldn't recall. Probably not.

She crept down the hall and stood outside Danny's room, peering in through the open door. Still empty. Still gone.

"Mom?"

Maddie stumbled a step at the sound of the voice. She turned around to find her daughter dressed in a nightgown and looking at her curiously.

"You okay?" Jazz joined her by her side and looked into Danny's room.

Maddie nodded and leaned against the door frame.

"How long have you been standing here?" asked Jazz.

Maddie studied the sky outside of Danny's window. It was suddenly much lighter than she remembered it being before.

"I don't know," she murmured.

They both remained quiet for some time. The normal sounds of the house became more noticeable.

"Do you want me to stay home from school again?" asked Jazz quietly. "To help you look for Danny?"

Maddie broke out of her trance. "No, you should go to school. But the police may be coming to talk to some of your teachers or classmates." She frowned. "Or at least, I hope they will."

The police were not taking this as seriously as she wanted them to, as she  _needed_  them to. Her son was  _missing_ , her  _child_  was gone. And yes, they were supposedly working on locating him, but because he was only a  _runaway_ , they didn't seem particularly concerned.

_He'll come back_ , they kept telling her.  _They always do. We've seen this before. This is what overly dramatic kids like your son does. They storm off with heated flair but always eventually return. Your son is just a runaway, that's all. Don't worry so much._

Runaway. They kept using that word. Almost like a pejorative label, as if he was just a degenerate teen who wasn't worth their time or resources. They had people who were  _actually_  missing that they still needed to find, after all.

She had spent the entire day yesterday searching for him. Talking to the police, giving a report of everything leading up to him running off, gathering all his most recent photos, asking anyone and everyone if they had even the smallest idea of where he might be.

Sam and Tucker seemed genuinely shocked at the news of his disappearance. Maddie had been so sure he was hiding out with one of them, but they both insisted that they did not where he was and appeared legitimately concerned and even alarmed.

Where could he have possibly gone if he wasn't with his friends, though? Who else did he have to go to? Did he have other friends she didn't know about?

Or was he alone on the streets somewhere in the next town over?

Or had he gotten a ride with someone, a stranger who perhaps didn't have good intentions for him?

What if the reason he hadn't come home yet was because he  _couldn't_  come home?

God, she didn't want to think about that, didn't want to even entertain the thought that her boy was being held somewhere against his will.

He had only been gone a little over thirty hours now. Still a relatively short amount of time. She could still be optimistic.

She smiled at Jazz. "Well, I'm gonna go make breakfast. See you in a bit."

She pushed past her daughter toward the stairs, keeping her smile plastered. Just one step at a time. First, make breakfast for her family. Then, see Jazz off for school. After that, shower and dress.

Breakfast passed in a strange blur. She knew she had cooked bacon and eggs and yet couldn't remember actually doing it. And then Jazz was suddenly gone, but she didn't remember saying goodbye or hearing the sound of the front door closing.

In the shower, she contemplated the next best thing to do. Call the police to ask for a status update? Or maybe call Vlad to see if he had found anything? Although surely he would've called  _her_  by now if he had come across some sort of clue.

The day before had been nothing but interviews and reports and exhausting all possible resources and leads. After filing with the police, it wasn't long until she was standing in the mayor's office, the office of a man she knew far too well, a man who was completely in love with her and would of course do whatever he could to help her if he thought it would win her love.

And as she had predicted, Vlad Masters was only too happy to see her. He had immediately stood from behind his desk when she walked in and practically ran to meet her. She almost felt guilty using his infatuation to her advantage.

And considering she was also taking advantage of his private lab outside of town, she had to wonder if she _did_  owe him something for his generosity.

She proceeded to explain the situation to him, that Danny was missing and that she had already searched everywhere she could think of, that the police were not taking his disappearance seriously at all. Vlad listened to her story intently, nodding and asking thoughtful, clarifying questions throughout.

"You have cameras set up around the town, don't you, Vlad?" she had asked him anxiously.

"Well, yes," Vlad had confirmed, "but—"

"Can you look through them? Or can I maybe look through them? Just for last night when he took off? Just to see if one of the cameras caught him?"

"The cameras aren't set up everywhere," said Vlad somewhat apologetically. "I do not have them set up in private neighborhoods, for one. Just in public areas. And they have sensors that are only set to record when triggered by ecto-signatures. They're for watching ghosts, not humans."

"But there could be something, right?" Maddie popped her knuckles. "Maybe Danny was caught on camera at the same time a ghost drifted by? Or…" She didn't want to mention the possibility that a ghost had maybe attacked him, but it was certainly not at all unlikely. And Danny would've had no way to defend himself.

"I'll take a look," Vlad had promised her. "And I'll allocate whatever resources I can to finding him."

His hand went to her shoulder. Maddie allowed him to keep it there.

"I'll let you know the moment I find something," he assured her.

And now as she finished up her shower, her confidence in Vlad's connections and abilities was waning.

As usual, if she wanted something done right, she had to do it herself. And when it came to finding her son, she was dedicated to ensuring it was done right.

She switched off the water and hastily dried herself off and dressed. No more wasting time. Now it was time to gather more clues.

She first gave Jack instructions as to what he should do to try to find Danny: make some phone calls, get status updates from the police, stay at the house in case Danny came home, call her the very second that he had any new information.

"Wait, where are you going?" asked Jack as Maddie picked up her keys and headed for the front door.

"I'm going to see Brandan," she replied coolly. "I don't think the police have talked to him yet, and I don't know when they will. But I'm not just going to wait around for them to do everything, especially since they clearly don't think Danny is a priority."

"Brandan? The therapist we had Danny see on Monday?"

"Yes. Maybe Danny said something to him that might give us an idea where he might be."

"Seems like a good idea. But don't you want me to come with you?"

Maddie quietly stared at her husband for a moment, fabricating an excuse in her head because  _no_ , Jack couldn't accompany her for this. She had to see Brandan alone. There was something she needed to talk to the therapist about privately, something that the therapist had hinted at when she had gone to talk to him alone Tuesday afternoon, something that she did not want Jack to know.

Something she did not want the police to know either.

"No," said Maddie. "I'd really feel better if you stayed here. Someone needs to be home in case Danny turns up."

"Are you sure?"

He looked almost sad. Maddie's heart fluttered with guilt. It seemed she was keeping so much from him these days, so many secrets.

And the longer she kept him locked out, the harder it would be to explain if he were to ever find out just what Brandan had said to her on Tuesday, just what Danny had said to her before he ran out the front door and seemingly vanished.

And just what she had been doing the past couple nights with a certain ghost boy.

But her husband could never know. He wouldn't understand. He already thought her pursuit for Phantom was hitting peak levels of derangement. How could she ever explain to him why she had gone out to hunt Phantom when she was supposed to be searching for Danny? How could she tell him that she just wanted to keep Phantom to herself and didn't want anyone else touching him?

She ignored her guilt-laden heart and left the house without another glance back.

The traffic was busier than she would've expected for a Thursday afternoon, but she was mostly numbed to the sounds and lights, her mind planning out her list of questions to ask the therapist as her arms and legs steered and maneuvered the car seemingly on their own. When she finally arrived at her destination, she couldn't recall any details at all of the drive itself.

Maddie quickly hopped out of her car and headed up the nearby stairs of the building that housed a pizza restaurant on the first floor and therapy offices on the second. The greased smell of cheese and cooked tomatoes wafted strong; she might've ordered some to take home to Jack on any other day. But she didn't have time to think about her husband. The only one who mattered right now was her son.

She entered the front lobby of the therapy clinic. An older woman was sitting in one of the chairs and knitting something, glancing up briefly before returning to her craft. Maddie marched up to the receptionist, someone new she had not seen before the last few times she had been here. "I need to speak with Brandan."

The receptionist smiled at her warmly. "Okay, well, let me look at his schedule—"

"I really need to speak with him right away."

The receptionist's smile didn't change. "He's currently with a client, but let me look—"

"This is really important. It's an emergency."

"Okay, I understand. Just a moment."

Maddie impatiently crossed her arms while the receptionist typed something into her desktop computer and looked over something on the screen.

"I'm seeing that someone cancelled their session for tomorrow at two." The receptionist turned back to Maddie brightly. "Is that all right? Should I schedule that for you?"

"I'm not one of his clients!" hissed Maddie. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the older knitting woman look up in surprise. "I don't need to see him for therapy. I need to ask him some questions. It's urgent."

"I see. Well, he's booked today—"

Maddie growled, set to walk to his office herself and demand he make time for her right then and there.

"But if you really need to see him, I'll send him a message, and perhaps he can come talk to you between sessions." The receptionist picked up a cell phone. "You're Maddie Fenton, right? The famous ghost researcher?"

"Yes," she replied in a low voice. "And he already knows who I am. We've met."

"And you just have some questions for him?"

"Yes. Please tell him it's an emergency. A dire one. It can't wait."

The receptionist gave her another smile, one that looked somewhat skeptical this time. She tapped out a message on her phone. "Okay. He'll be finishing up his current session in about fifteen minutes if you want to wait here."

Maddie sharply turned around and swiftly moved to take a seat without another word.

"Would you like some water or coffee while you wait, Maddie?"

Maddie shook her head and did not even look at the receptionist again. The woman knitting peered at her curiously from one of the seats across from her. Maddie kept her own eyes on her phone, watching the time move forward.

Another woman came in from outside and joined them in the lobby. Her coiled hair framed her face in a disheveled mess, her eyes appearing puffy as if she had been rubbing them. Maddie only gave her a cursory glance.

Someone stepped out into the lobby through the door leading to the therapy offices. Maddie looked up but then irritably looked away again. Just a man with ill-fitting clothes and combed-over hair. Not who she was waiting for at all.

The door opened a minute after that. Maddie looked up again to see another man, this time one with a strapping physique and impeccably coiffed blond hair. Exactly who she was looking for.

"Maddie?" Brandan approached her, looking concerned but also apprehensive. "I got a message that you needed to talk to me. Is everything all right?"

"We need to talk. In your office." Maddie stood and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

Brandan looked over at a different woman in the room, the one with the puffy eyes. "I have clients booked today, Maddie—"

"She won't be seeing you until the hour, right? We still have eight minutes to talk, don't we?"

"That's not really something I usually—"

"I wouldn't be asking to talk to you if this wasn't extremely urgent," insisted Maddie snappishly. "Believe me, I don't  _want_  to be here talking to you, Brandan. Not after what you said to me last time."

Brandan audibly inhaled but did not reply.

"It's about Danny," Maddie said more quietly. "I just need to ask you some questions."

Brandan stared at her for some time, his brow furrowed. He then sighed, shrugged, and led the way back to his office. "All right. But right at ten, I'll have to take my next client."

"I understand."

The friendly, personable air she had first encountered from him at the beginning of the week was now replaced with frosty distance. Not that she was surprised, not after their last meeting when she told him right to his face that she now understood why his wife had decided to divorce him.

But that was his own fault for being such an ass and implicitly accusing her of scaring Danny into submission and letting her ghost research consume her and prevent her from being a good mother to him.

He briskly walked ahead, but he at least had the courtesy to hold the door to his office open for her. Inside, she didn't bother sitting on the sofa. She simply waited for him to close the door.

"All right. So what do you need from me?" He stood apart from her with his arms crossed. "What's going on with Danny? I saw that you cancelled all future sessions between him and me. Are you wanting to maybe have him see me again?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "No, Brandan. Danny will not be seeing you again. But I need to know what exactly he told you during the one session you did have with him on Monday."

Brandan's expression became more stoic. "Even though he is no longer my client, I am still obligated to keep what we discussed private."

"I really need to know, Brandan. I wouldn't be here asking you if this wasn't urgent."

"I understand, but I still cannot tell you anything specific."

"Aren't you supposed to tell me anything he might've said that could suggest he's in danger or that he's going to hurt himself or others? Or that someone else is hurting him? Things like that?"

Brandan's stance faltered. "Yes, of course. But nothing like that transpired in our one session together. If you have suspicions and you'd like me to try talking to him—"

"No, you can't talk to him again."

Brandan's lips shut tight.

"If Danny is in danger, is it not okay for you to reveal details of your conversation with him to help me help him?"

Brandan's forehead creased. " _Is_  Danny in danger?"

"He's missing."

Brandan's mouth dropped open slightly.

"He's been gone since late Tuesday night." Maddie's voice was suddenly shaking.

"Missing? What happened? Did he go out and just not come home? Or did someone…" He trailed off, looking unsure whether he should finish the question or not.

"I don't have time to give you the whole story," said Maddie. An excuse. Using lack of time as an excuse when she actually just didn't want to tell him the whole story, didn't want to tell him that Danny wasn't just missing but had  _run away_ , hadn't just run away but had run away  _from her_.

Brandan had already hinted during their last meeting that Danny had expressed fear of her, that he didn't feel safe with her. She in no way wanted to give Brandan any further evidence that could corroborate his possible hypothesis.

God, this guy just  _really_  pissed her off.

But she had to know the meaning behind Brandan's hinted accusations. She had to know before the police came and talked to him. She had to know first so that she could prepare her own defense if needed.

"He's been missing for a day and a half now," said Maddie, her voice warbling again. "Does that qualify to you as danger? Is that enough of a reason for you to disclose what he told you? So that maybe we can get some clues about where he might be?"

"Yes," said Brandan slowly, his eyes directed across the room and not at her. "Absolutely."

He moved a short distance and lowered himself in the office chair in the middle of the room, his eyes still glazed as he stared ahead. Maddie remained standing and watched him curiously.

"I'm guessing you've already filed a police report?" he finally asked, raising his head to look up at her.

"Yes," said Maddie. "Of course."

Brandan nodded and lowered his head again, his gaze once again distant, one elbow propped on an armrest, fingers placed loosely under his chin.

Maddie put a hand on her hip. "Well? Did Danny say anything to you that might help us know where to find him? Where to look?"

Brandan stayed quiet for a moment, far too long for Maddie's liking.

"I still can't tell you anything, Maddie," he said solemnly.

Maddie's jaw dropped, her teeth practically baring. "What? You said you could tell me if he was in danger!"

"Yes, but in this particular instance, there's a protocol I need to follow. I cannot just tell you anything without seeing a police report first." He rose to his feet and checked the time on his phone.

"What?" Maddie snapped. "Do you think I'm lying or something?"

"No, I just—"

"My son is  _missing_ , Brandan, and every second matters here. I need you to tell me  _now_  so that I can have a better chance of finding him!"

"I understand, Maddie, but I can't say anything without seeing a police report. And the police are going to want to hear from me directly since they're the ones leading the investigation."

"I don't want to wait around for the police to talk to you. I'm taking this into my own hands. The police just think he's a—" Maddie stopped herself.

Brandan cocked his head. "They think he's a what?"

Maddie inhaled deeply as she stared at him, precious seconds of their time ticking away.

She couldn't tell him Danny had run away. She couldn't tell him Danny had run away after a fight with her. She couldn't tell him Danny had run away  _from_  her. Because he had already insinuated that he thought Maddie was perhaps hurting Danny in some way.

But the police would tell him. There was no way to keep this secret from him  _and_  learn what he and Danny talked about.

There was no way to prevent it. The police were eventually going to interview Brandan. But what would the therapist tell them? She had so hoped she could learn beforehand.

What if Danny really had confessed to Brandan that he was afraid of her? That he felt that she was threatening him into submission? What would the police think of that? How might that change their view of his disappearance?

She had spoken to the police at great length about the circumstances leading up to him running away. How he had been grounded for sneaking out about a week earlier, his dealings with bullying since the beginning of high school, his poor attendance and performance in school, the secret texting app on his phone that she couldn't break into, and of course, his struggle with an addiction to pain medication including narcotic analgesics that she had only just discovered. She told them how she had locked up their pain medications and had proceeded to get him help, beginning with therapy, detoxification, and a full health examination including bloodwork.

She told them that the night he ran away, she had found him downstairs in the kitchen stealing painkillers from their medicine cabinet. He had somehow gotten through the lock, but she had managed to stop him before he could swallow any. When pressed for information about how he had gotten into the cabinet and the secret texting app on his phone, he became defensive, angry. He ran off, and by the time she had gotten to the front door to stop him, he was already completely gone. He had just...vanished.

But there was one detail she hadn't told the police. One detail she didn't want them to know. The very last thing Danny had said to her before he ran.

He wanted her to just let him keep his secrets. She told him she could not since his secrets were hurting him.

"And what makes you think my secrets are hurting me?" he had asked.

The memory of his pained strangled voice still haunted her.

"What if you're the one hurting me?"

Those were the final words he had left with her. And she would keep that to herself forever. Because she could in no way allow the police to even speculate that she somehow had a dastardly part in Danny's disappearance. She couldn't allow them to waste their time investigating her because she knew very well she had done nothing wrong, had done nothing but be a good caring mother toward her son, so leaving this little detail out wasn't going to impede anything.

She could only hope that whatever Brandan had to say to the police, it would not incriminate her. But getting angry with him now and demanding he tell her anything would certainly not make her look any better.

"They think he's a what, Maddie?" asked Brandan again.

Maddie straightened up. "The police are definitely going to talk to you at some point, but I don't know when." She shrugged. "I just thought that maybe I could speed things up by asking you first."

Brandan's gaze lowered. "I wish I could do more for you right now. I really do. But I can't break protocol on this." He stood and looked at her intently. "But please ask them to get in contact with me as soon as possible. I'll make time for them."

Maddie mustered up a smile. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Their gazes locked for some time, a time long enough to betray so many unspoken words and distrust between them.

The remainder of the day proved just as fruitless. The police had no significant updates for her, no promising leads. Teachers, classmates, friends, no one had any information to offer to assist much in the search and investigation.

The night was now old, the sky was completely dark.

Jack was sleeping deeply. Jazz was in her own room with the door closed.

Danny's room was still empty.

Maddie's lower body groaned with weighted frustration, her upper chest and arms shook with tense restlessness.

She had to relieve all this pressure.

She crept out of the house, locked the door behind her, and drove away toward her secret lab.


	4. are you in trouble?

_Are you in trouble?_

All she wanted was to keep him safe. She couldn't let herself fail now.

…

Everything hurt.

No matter how hard he tried to focus on something else, no matter how hard he tried to just blank his mind or maybe even sleep, the nerve signals and impulses indicating that  _everything hurt_  would not cease.

Danny knew he had advanced healing abilities in this form. He knew that his mother—that the  _scientist_  had apparently altered her solidifying injection so that his healing powers would still work. He knew all that and yet he was sure they weren't working. They had to have been disabled right along with his other powers because  _EVERYTHING. STILL. HURT._

He had no idea how long it had been since she left, how long ago it was that he had heard the door close behind her, how long the lights had been off. He couldn't even guess. This all just seemed like a timeless purgatory, a voided oblivion, a limbo in which only pain existed.

His palms were blistering. The ectoplasm had clotted and dried but the disturbed nerve endings were vibrating, his slowed ghostly heart rate beating hard through them. And all of the other cuts, all of the calculated incisions buzzed dully on the surface of his skin. His wrists and ankles were also feeling so inflamed within their restraints. He stayed completely still so as not to rub them against the anti-ghost metal and aggravate the chafed and bruised flesh even further.

Parts of him were hurting that he didn't even expect to hurt. His spine, his neck, his shoulder blades. Nothing to support his head or back except this hard table, nothing to keep him comfortably aligned, everything to heighten his senses.

But nothing could surpass the pain in his left eye. It felt almost bolted shut, permanently closed with burning glue. He could feel his pulse pounding there as well, no longer pumping out ectoplasm with each beat but definitely knocking aggressively against his eyelid.

He wanted to claw at it, rub it, tear it out. And if his wrists weren't effectively cuffed to the table, he was sure he'd somehow end up ripping his eye open again in delirious desperation. It stung and itched and throbbed and  _refused to shut up_  so that he could at least  _try_  to sleep or maybe slip into some sort of zoned-out trance.

He was trapped in hellish consciousness.

Painkillers. Opioids. Something to stop all this swelling, all this discomfort, all this misery. If he took enough, it would knock him out straightaway. No more pain, no more thinking, just blissful dreamless sleep. Or a coma. Or death. All possibilities sounded phenomenal.

His skin was prickling with cold bumps and yet also breaking out with sweatless fever. His stomach was sloshing even though he was lying perfectly still, as if the table were rocking or the floor were quaking. His insides cramped and squeezed. Was there even anything in his stomach? Was he feeling sick or hungry? Did he even need to eat in this form? He had absolutely no idea, had never been stuck in ghost form for this long before.

And just how long had he been in this form now? How long since he had last been human?

All he knew for sure was that right now his shackled body was trembling and his broken skin was twinging and his ruptured eye was pounding and his stirring insides were rising.

He turned his head to the side and vomited, ghostly bile rushing up and spilling onto the table, thin liquid spreading and dripping onto the floor. The foul smell brought up even more spectral acid that frothed past his dry tongue and bubbled on his cracked lips.

The top of his head bristled, a sensation that quickly traveled to his neck. He turned his face to the other side, his bangs flipping over and tickling his slashed eye.

Someone was touching him. Danny moaned and turned to find the scientist with her hood up and goggles on. He attempted to jump up, to get away, but his restraints brought him back down immediately, causing the back of his head to thump against the table.

"Relax, Phantom." Maddie placed a firm hand on his chest. "I'm just cleaning you up."

"What?" whispered Danny as she pressed a warm cloth to his mouth and cheek.

"How are you feeling right now?" she asked as she began wiping off the table. "Are you still feeling sick?"

Her concerned tone, her caring questions. He had to be mishearing. "I...what?"

"I need to know how you're feeling, Phantom, so that I can know what to give you to make you feel better." Maddie huffed and finished mopping up the table and floor. She moved behind him and turned on a sink. "It's too early for me to be running tests on you in a state like this. I need you to be healthy in the beginning. I'm not going to get very good results from you like this. So just tell me what you're feeling."

Danny mumbled a response but had no idea what he was saying. She reappeared at his side and ran a hand along his arm. Her whole image appeared to be glitching, her atoms swimming around in a murky haze.

"Your suit is on again. Completely," she murmured. "When did that happen?"

Danny wearily glanced at his arm. She was right. His suit was once again intact and covering his body. He stared at the spectral fabric, trying to decide if he remembered his suit somehow mending itself and getting back into position on his body.

Her fingers roamed along his arm to his shoulder to his neck. She pulled down the zipper of his suit, once again exposing him. She removed one of her gloves and placed a hand on his shuddering chest, moved her palm around, pinched his skin in a few places. Danny stayed as still as he could but his heart could not be controlled and his body was racked with countless intervals of tremors.

She walked away again. He could hear her cursing under her breath as she rummaged through drawers and cabinets. She returned to his side with a tall pole holding an IV bag in one hand and a needle in the other. Danny gasped so sharply that the force seemed to tear his throat apart.

"This is just to rehydrate you," scolded Maddie. "I've never seen a ghost get dehydrated this quickly. So bizarre."

She cut off the right sleeve of his suit, baring his arm and hand. She uncuffed his wrist and moved his entire arm down along his side.

"Don't get any ideas, Phantom," she said sternly. "I'm not going to give you any second chances. If you try anything with this arm, you won't like the consequences."

Danny obediently kept his arm still. He didn't have the strength to move it anyway.

She tied a tourniquet around his upper arm and began poking at a vein in the crook of his elbow. "Pump a fist for me."

Danny's hand shook as he tried to clench it, struggled to. His fingers curled toward his palm, but they refused to move in tighter. With a loud exhale, he let his hand fall open on the table, throbbing from the strain. He mumbled an excuse but again had no idea what he was saying.

"All right, never mind," sighed Maddie. "Just relax."

Danny turned his head away from her and closed his eyes. A sharp sting shoved its way into his arm. He moaned as Maddie fiddled with the needle violating his flesh. The tourniquet was removed from his arm, then he heard something scraping along the floor, the sound of plastic, some clicking, some more scraping, and then quiet. She was no longer moving at all.

Danny turned his head to find her sitting beside him in a chair she had pulled up. An IV bag above him was trickling fluid into the line inserted in the crook of his arm. The needle in his vein pulsated rhythmically. Danny's initial fascination morphed into nausea at the sight.

He turned his attention to Maddie instead. She looked blurry and her goggles were still covering her eyes, but Danny could sense she was staring at him intently. She reached out her ungloved hand toward his face. Danny flinched but allowed her to place the back of her fingers against his forehead. Her knuckles grazed his cheek, passed over his broken eye. He turned his head away from her, but she did not scold him or force him to look back at her. She said nothing at all and did not try to touch him again for some time.

There was no clock in the lab and yet Danny was sure he could hear ticking. It was in his ears, in his head, pounding and knocking against his skull.

"Feeling better yet, Phantom?"

She was standing now. Danny blinked up at her but noted that her image was still, no longer swimming in his line of vision.

"Not gonna talk to me, huh?" Maddie put her glove back on. "I guess I don't blame you. I'm sure you don't want a repeat of last night."

Danny's jawbone tightened as she moved behind him again out of sight. She really thought she had subdued him into complete submission, did she?

He glanced at the cuff on his left wrist, at the needle in his right arm.

Could he honestly say she was wrong?

Maddie emerged beside him again with a tray of tools and began cutting off the top half of his suit. "So strange. I've never seen this happen before with other ghosts' clothes." She held a strip of the fabric close to her goggles. "Almost like...your suit is a ghost, too. In its own way." She looked down at him. "Did you feel this wrap around your body again? When did it happen?"

Danny said nothing.

"Fine. Stay quiet." Maddie gathered all the severed sections of his suit. "I'm going to place these in a containment device, see if that'll prevent them from getting back to you."

"Don't need a play-by-play," muttered Danny.

"What was that?"

Danny sucked the inside of his bottom lip. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Maddie smirking.

"That was pretty cute, Phantom." She chortled. "You're really good at this whole teenage angsty rebel act, you know. Very authentic."

She once again stepped out of sight. Danny's facial muscles twitched.

"Or maybe this really is how you were in your previous terrestrial existence." Her voice echoed against the lab ceiling. "I suppose many ghosts do retain remnants of their previous personalities. If that's the case, I don't envy whoever your mother was."

Unsure whether to take offense that she kept insisting his every display of feeling and character was artificial or to be amused that she would say something so ironic, a lump caught in Danny's throat that he half laughed, half coughed out. The paralyzing device on his neck thudded painfully against his vocal cords in response.

"Of course, you wouldn't remember your mother," said Maddie's dismissive disembodied voice. "Although I wish you could remember your previous life. Knowing who you were would help me immensely."

Danny's undamaged eye lidded, his mouth turned down.

She was absolutely right. He could not recall who he used to be before he became a ghost. Had he been a happy child? Did he use to have more fun? Did he dream of a bright future?

He could not say.

And he had no idea who his mother was.

Did he ever know?

She was again at his side with new tools, new plans. She gently touched the IV needle in his arm, causing a small but sharp stinging sensation. "I think I'll leave this in for a while. In fact, with how fast you got dehydrated, I should probably administer other nourishment as well."

"How 'bout some morphine?" Danny quipped.

Maddie crooked a brow but smiled. "Morphine's expensive. I'm not wasting any on you." She scanned her tools. "But I'm glad you're back to your usual cocky self. I was a little worried there for a minute. I thought I had broken you too soon."

Danny attempted to keep his expression blank. God damn it. Even in his acts of defiance, he was only giving her exactly what she wanted.

She strapped a surgical headlight above her goggles and switched it on. Danny's good eye squinted in the intense light.

"Now to see how you've healed after last night. Gotta make sure you're definitely not broken."

Her tone was so infuriatingly light and casual, as if she were merely making a small joke, as if he were supposed to chuckle or hum mirthfully in response to her clever wit.

Maddie first examined his right palm and moved her study up his arm and along the side of his torso, directing her light at his skin, carefully avoiding the IV needle still pumping into him. "Smaller and shallower incisions are completely healed, no trace of them at all. The more moderately severe incisions are only a little visible, mostly healed. The deep incisions are visible but mostly sealed up." She paused. "You joked about wanting morphine. Do they still hurt?"

Danny suppressed a vexed groan. There was something so irritating about her using his previous display of irreverence against him.

Did they still hurt?  _YES they still hurt OF COURSE they still hurt they hurt they hurt they_ —

Wanting morphine wasn't a  _joke_ , he absolutely needed it—

He...he did, right?

He glanced down at his arm. All the cuts from before  _were_  healed, she was right. But then why did they still hurt?

His therapist, the therapist he had only seen once—Brandan—had told him his frequent use of painkillers could cause him to imagine pain that wasn't really there.

But...this pain was definitely real, wasn't it?

She was waiting for his answer. His answer was yes, yes, so much pain, please give him something to numb this pain.

But she loved his pain, his weakness.

He couldn't allow himself to give her what she wanted.

"No," he muttered. "They don't hurt anymore."

"Both sides or just this one? This is the side I dressed before I left last night."

Danny flexed the fingers of his left hand. Yes, definitely, this side also still hurt like hell. "Both sides don't hurt anymore."

"Well, it definitely appears that your healing powers are engaged." Maddie picked up a notepad and scribbled away. "That's perfect. Wonderful. Exactly what I wanted to see. Exactly what I  _needed_  to see before moving forward with you."

Her expression of glee, so childlike, so sadistic. Reveling in how she could take her torture with him to agonizing lengths because he would heal and be ready for more in just a day or two.

His healing powers had actually betrayed him by working so damn well. His healing powers had just doomed him to an even more horrific existence.

Danny dispersed a deep rasping sigh past his sore throat and stayed quiet as Maddie continued to scrawl notes and prod at his arm and side. She then moved around the table to repeat her analysis on his left side.

"This is the side I didn't dress," she said, "so I don't expect it to have healed as well as the right side."

Danny began to roll his eyes but stopped immediately when a stabbing pain in his slashed eye reminded him that NO he couldn't do that right now.

He just wished she'd stop talking to him. Like a dentist trying to make conversation with her tools and fingers shoved down his throat.

"And I was right." Maddie's headlamp aimed carefully at each laceration on his left side. "Not healed as well although still showing significant rapid healing. Smaller incisions are either completely healed or only just visible. Moderately severe incisions are mostly closed. The deepest incisions are scabbed over and do not look swollen or puffy at all." She ran her thumb along the gash in his palm. "Perfect."

She sounded so overjoyed, so pleased. And normally, Danny would've loved hearing her sound that way because it used to mean he wasn't in trouble, that everything was okay, that he had nothing to worry about, nothing to make up for.

Now her familiar signs of joy could only be associated with pain.

"All right," said Maddie. "Time to look at the most major and spontaneous injury."

She chortled under her breath as she moved up toward his face and placed her hand against his left cheek and temple. Danny's good eye watered in the bright light aimed at his face, his damaged eye screwed shut even tighter.

"Can you open this eye at all?" she asked, her tone playing the part of a primary care physician merely asking him how his health was faring these days.

Danny flinched as her finger passed over his eyelid. "No."

"Really?" Maddie's red-stained lips frowned. "Not what I was hoping to hear."

She switched off her headlamp. Danny's eyes relaxed immediately.

"I need to get a good look at your eye, so please don't fight with me," said Maddie sharply. "Otherwise I'll have to get something to pry it open, and you don't want that."

Danny exhaled hard out his nose. He wanted so much to do all he could to make this difficult for her and yet he did not want it to come at the cost of making anything more unpleasant for himself.

She bent over him and placed her right thumb below his lower lash line and her right middle finger on his eyebrow. She applied gentle but firm pressure and moved her fingers apart. Danny whimpered, a small wet trickle escaping his swollen duct and running down his cheek.

She pressed harder, pulled harder. Danny gritted his teeth and did his best to assist. The sooner she looked at his eye, the sooner he could reclose it. But surely she was tearing him apart again! Surely his socket was being ripped right open! Surely this was actually ectoplasm surging out of his eye and not tears!

His head and face were trembling and cramping up as her hold on him only strengthened and became more aggressive. She at last stopped, her fingers shaking hard against him as she worked to keep his eye open.

"Hmm." Maddie lowered her face closer to his. "It looks like your cornea is closed up."

She stared a little longer before switching on her surgical headlight. Danny flinched and closed his other eye tight.

"Not glowing. Many broken ecto-vessels. Iris looks cloudy." She attempted to push his eye open a little more. "Can you see out of this eye at all?"

Through the eyelid of his undamaged right eye, he could see her headlamp filtering through in bright scarlet, feel it warming the thin flesh.

But through his left eye, he could see nothing. He could not even say if it was darkness. There was simply nothing coming through to that eye at all. He could feel the heat of her flashlight but could not see even the dimmest glimmer.

"No," he said simply.

"No? What do you mean? Is it blurry? Dark?"

"I mean no, I see nothing out of this eye."

"Nothing?" Maddie tried prying his eye open even more, drawing a low moan from Danny. "Nothing at all? Not even a little bit? Are you sure?"

"Well, you're holding it open and I'm not seeing anything, so yeah, I'm pretty sure."

Maddie studied his eye for a moment longer, then released her hold, gently assisting his eyelid to cover his torn cornea. The instant relief created a fleeting euphoria in Danny's chest before the pain quickly settled in again.

"Maybe your healing powers aren't as advanced as I thought," said Maddie. "Your vision loss could be permanent."

Danny opened his other eye just as she began jotting down some new notes. He could only read her expression from the lower half of her face, her mouth pursed and cheeks sunken beneath the large orange lenses of her goggles.

Maddie sighed and set her notepad down. "I really hope it's not permanent, though. I really want to do some tests on your eyes."

"Well, you've still got one more eye over here to blind, too," remarked Danny in dull monotone.

Maddie smirked. "I see you're definitely feeling better now. All feisty again." She moved back over to his right side and inspected the IV line in his arm. "I can probably take this out, then."

Danny grimaced as the length of metal slid out of his vein. Maddie applied a cotton swab and bandaged the site with self-adherent wrap.

"You promise to behave if I don't restrain this arm just yet?" she asked. "I don't want to bend it until the oozing stops."

Danny glared at her out of his good eye. He did _not_  want to answer this question because he had no intention of doing anything with that arm anyway since it wasn't like he could somehow make a great escape with just one free arm but he also could not bring himself to make such a degrading promise to her.

He turned his head to stare up at the ceiling. Maddie chortled but did not try to force him to speak. The sound of her amused laughter made the nodes and ligaments in his neck tighten.

She leaned over him and placed a gloved hand on the left side of his face, very gently tilting him to face her again. Her thumb lightly grazed the area below his broken eye.

"I really wish you hadn't made me do this," she murmured, her lips so close he could see all the chalky lipsticked flecks of tissue and tiny ridges. "I'm going to be so disappointed if you don't get your vision back. I had plans, you know."

Danny said nothing. Did  _he_  want his vision to return? Or would he rather ruin her plans by spiting her with a permanently damaged eye?

Was there even need for a debate? He was going to die here. He had nothing more to see anyway. She might as well blind his other eye, too.

She repeated basic tests from the night before. Ecto-pressure, pulse, temperature, other things he didn't understand but still involved groping him in some way. He stayed silent until he felt something new on his neck, something slick and greasy. He yelped and turned toward her to figure out what she was doing to him this time.

Maddie was staring intently at a digital monitor she had connected to a large computer on wheels. An ultrasound image. She moved a transducer over his neck, spreading slippery gel all across his skin.

He studied the ultrasound image. What exactly was he looking at? Was this really the inside of his neck? He could make absolutely no sense of it. Just a bunch of grey and black shapes.

"Wow," murmured Maddie. "I've looked inside humanoid ghosts before, but this just looks... _so_  human. I don't think I would've been able to tell the difference at all if this was placed alongside actual human ultrasound images."

She pressed hard against his trachea. Danny swallowed in response, his Adam's apple knocking painfully against the transducer.

"I can't wait to see what's under here with my own eyes," she sighed wistfully, still staring at the monitor.

A hard tremor tore through Danny's upper chest. He caught her meaning. He knew exactly what she meant. Something he had joked about so many times with Sam and Tucker and even to himself when he was all alone trying to make light of the possibility so he wouldn't have to admit he was actually terrified of it happening. And now here it was, no longer just a possibility but an  _inevitability._ Something that was definitely going to happen to him in the near future.

Now it was all  _real_. He had known in the back of his head since she first captured him that this was going to happen but now it was at the forefront and an absolute certainty. She was going to cut him open and probably wouldn't even have the courtesy to kill or anesthetize him first and no amount of begging or screaming or trying to convince her he was actually her son would ever make her stop.

"I actually felt your pulse jump through your artery here." Maddie gave him a pleasant smile. "I guess you don't like that idea, huh?"

Danny did everything he could to not react to her amused comment but there was no stopping the pounding in his chest and neck.

Maddie finished her ultrasound analysis, and Danny could only hope that she was maybe done for the night because it had been a long time and  _surely_  she had to get back home soon, right? It had been hours, right? It felt like it had been hours. But to his dismay, she positioned another device over him, a camera with a tube head connected to an extension arm.

"Vlad has some really nice equipment. This X-ray machine is far more sophisticated than what we have at home." Maddie looked over the camera and swiveled it around. "And this is just his basic one. He has another more powerful one over there in the corner along with an MRI machine. Definitely be using that at some point."

Danny's brow furrowed as Maddie proceeded to move the tube head of the camera into position above him. "Does Vlad... _know_  you're here?"

"Hmm?" Maddie paused.

"Does Vlad Masters know you're here? Here with...me?"

"Why does that matter to you?"

Danny averted his gaze.

"No, really." Maddie moved to be in his line of sight. "I'm legitimately curious. Why are you asking this?"

Danny still said nothing.

"Do you know Vlad or something?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, he's the mayor of the town I've been protecting the past year and a half."

"But do you know him beyond that?"

He knew Vlad far beyond what he wished he knew but he couldn't tell her that, couldn't tell her that he had the most irrational hope that  _someone_  knew he was here and would maybe help him even if that person was  _Vlad_  who had also in the past kidnapped and tortured him and so probably wouldn't care to free him from this captivity but maybe if he was lucky Vlad would at least let Sam and Tucker and Jazz know and then maybe they could come and rescue him because he was too weak and stupid to get out of this on his own.

A hero unable to save himself.

"No," he said quietly.

Maddie studied him for some time.

"No one knows you're here," she said.

Danny did not react.

The camera moved and the X-ray machine hummed and Maddie kept jabbering but Danny barely paid attention. He stared up at the ceiling but did not actually see anything. Her fingers kept brushing against his skin but he did not actually feel anything.

No one knew he was here.

Sam didn't know he was here.

But by now she knew he was gone, right? Was she looking for him?

She was so smart. Way smarter than he was.

If anyone could find him, she could.

Maybe she was getting close.

Maybe she'd be here soon.

One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

"What's on your mind?" asked Maddie.

His smile dropped.

More buzzing noises and pen scratchings and unwanted touching and glares reflecting off her goggles as she continued her study. Danny closed his undamaged eye and attempted to disconnect from this reality, to numb himself by not thinking or focusing on anything at all.

He had never felt so lonely before.

Seconds and minutes and maybe even hours perhaps even  _days_  passed as Maddie worked and Danny lay on this table that was getting increasingly uncomfortable. His neck was aching, in need of support. Was this really preferable to being on his knees for hours and hours? He couldn't remember, but a change of position just sounded  _so_  excellent.

Her hands were on his head, her fingers curling in his hair. Danny opened his good eye and curiously glanced up at her from where she stood just behind him.

"You have a lot of hair," she muttered. "Hope I can get this to work."

She stepped away for a moment. Danny's heart raced as he wondered what she was referring to. What was she going to do to him now? Something involving his head? He wanted to ask and yet didn't want to know at all. Maybe it wouldn't hurt as much if he didn't know what was even happening.

She returned and began rubbing his forehead with something wet. Alcohol? Was she cleaning his forehead? Why?! Was she going to cut it open?! Was she really going for his head already?! This was only the second night! Or was it? Had he actually been here for a really long time but he was suffering from sort of dementia due to all of her experimentation?

She rubbed his earlobes with alcohol wipes as well. Danny's panic morphed into confusion. What...okay, really, what was she doing? She usually narrated these things. He really didn't want to ask, but this...this just made no sense to him.

She was now holding something above his head, something made of fabric speckled with white electrodes. Some sort of cap? She placed two of the electrodes against his forehead and pressed them firmly to his skin.

"Hold these in place," she ordered.

Danny blinked. Had he heard her right? "Hold...what?"

"Hold these electrodes in place on your forehead. With your right hand." She picked up his unrestrained arm and pushed his fingers against the electrodes on his head. "Hold them like that."

Danny moved his hand away the moment she let go. "You actually...you want me to  _help_  you experiment on me?"

"Phantom, this isn't going to hurt."

"I've heard  _that_  before."

"It's not. I'm just going to take a look at your brain activity. And it would be a lot easier to get this on if you helped me."

"Right, because I  _so_  want to make this easier for you."

"Yes, you do," said Maddie sternly, "because making this easier for me will in turn make things easier for you."

Danny glared up at her. "I'm not helping you."

She paused for only a moment before dropping the cap and picking up his right wrist, slamming it against the table up near his ear and shackling it down so tightly the edge of the anti-ghost metal cut into his flesh. She then pressed the electrodes to his forehead again with one hand while manipulating the cap onto his scalp, grunting and huffing as she did so. Danny smiled to himself.

When the cap was secured on his head, she stood behind him for a short moment, unmoving, breathing deeply. Danny listened to each breath become less and less shaky. Her hands were then on his scalp again, adjusting the cap, pulling and tugging at it with small movements.

"Does that feel tight?" she asked him.

Danny shrugged.

She continued to do things that made no sense to him and that she failed to explain. She clamped something onto each of his ears. She injected some sort of cold gel into each electrode on his head and applied hard pressure, working it into his scalp and hair.

"Okay. I think this might be good," said Maddie. "Looks like we have some good connectivity." She pulled up a computer monitor on wheels and tapped away at the keyboard. "Now to see what we've got here."

Danny made no attempt to turn his head to see what was on her screen.

"That's good," said Maddie. "Just keep looking up at the ceiling."

Danny growled under his breath. That was indeed exactly what he wanted to do but not if she also wanted him to do it and so now he had no idea what to do instead because he really didn't want to do anything else except look up at the damn ceiling.

He was just...so tired.

He continued to look up at the ceiling with his one good eye. His other eye began pulsating in uncomfortable rhythm.

She stayed silent for a long time, studying whatever she was seeing on her computer screen. Danny didn't even wonder what she was observing. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to keep being constantly reminded that he was only a science project to her, the center of her research and experimentation.

What day was it? What day had he run off? That was...Tuesday, right? Or Monday? No, he saw the therapist on Monday. Right? That had been Monday, right? And so today was—no tonight—or was it night? Was it actually daytime? With no windows and no clock, he had no way of knowing.

But supposing it was nighttime, what might he have been doing right now if he weren't here? If he hadn't been taken captive? If he were still home? Would he have finally been ungrounded? Would he be in his room texting Sam? Or maybe even actually talking with her through a voice call? Or seeing her face in a video call?

Would he ever see her face again?

Maddie hummed and peered over him, her hooded head hovering right above his. Danny looked straight through her goggles.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know what I'm thinking?" he asked earnestly, tiredly.

"Because you're a ghost, of course."

Danny's forehead gently creased. Maddie chuckled.

"Oh, of course I'm interested in ghost physiology," she said with a breathy lilt. "Yes, absolutely, of course. And I'll be studying your physiology plenty, trust me. But ghost psychology is equally fascinating to me."

She leaned over him from behind his head and delicately placed her palms against his unwilling breast. Danny paused his breathing and kept his good eye trained on her hands.

"I of course want to know everything about what's under here." She trailed her hands up his bare chest and along his neck and rested her fingers on his capped head. "But up here, your unique ghostly obsession, your strategies for satisfying it, that's all up here. Your body is what makes you a ghost, but your mind is what makes you Phantom. And understanding you in comparison to other ghosts is the whole reason I pursued you so aggressively in the first place."

She smoothed the edges of the electrode cap against his head before returning to study the information feeding into her computer. Danny stared up at the ceiling again, this time thinking very deeply indeed.

"What do you think your son is thinking?" he finally asked.

Maddie did not respond, but her silence was heavy and dark.

"What do you think Danny is thinking?" he tried again, a little more loudly and forcefully. "Do you think he's scared? Sad?"

"Don't," said Maddie.

"Don't what?"

"Don't talk about him." Her tone was low but her voice was breaking. "And definitely don't say his name as if you know a thing about him."

"And you think _you_  know a thing about him?"

No answer.

"What do you know about him, really?" he asked with a smirk. "Do you know where he is right now?"

He could not see her from where she stood behind him but he could hear the sound of her gloved fingers rubbing against each other.

"Why are you here with me and not out looking for him?"

The words tumbled out with playful mirth, but he was surprised by the sincerity of the question.

His mom  _did_ care about him, right? She was worried about him, wasn't she? She wanted to find him and bring him home again, didn't she?

But then what was she doing here instead?

"Why are you here?" he echoed to himself in a low whisper before restrengthening his voice. "How do you think he'd feel if he knew you weren't looking for him right now because you just couldn't resist me?"

She was on him swiftly, her hand connecting hard with his right cheek. His left eye spasmed and burned, the vision in his good eye sparkled as he blinked away the daze.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she snarled out with shaky panting. "You don't know what I've been doing to find him when I'm not here with you. You don't know how much sleep and energy and time I've sacrificed for him. And you have no idea how I feel about him, just how fiercely I love him."

Danny kept his head turned and could feel chilled ectoplasm flushing his sore cheek.

"Don't for a moment fantasize that you are somehow more important to me than he is," continued Maddie. "You are only good for research and experimentation, Phantom. If I had to choose between having him or you, I'd choose him without hesitation. You could never mean more to me than my son."

His mouth twitched into a smile.

An involuntary chuckle escaped him.

He could not restrain this expression of amusement. No way. It was just too goddamn funny.

"You say all that," he rasped out, turning his head to look up at her directly, "but that doesn't change that right here, right now, you are choosing me over him."

Her red lips curled harshly.

"Because this? All this you're doing to me?" His throat buzzed against the paralyzing device on his neck as he raised his volume to a yell. "This is  _never_  going to help you find him!"

He meant to sound angry but his words came out more like a very desperate plea.

_Please stop doing this so I can come home!_

He stared straight into the orange lenses of her goggles. "You will  _never_  find him if you keep doing this."

She moved to his side and wrapped a hand around his neck, pinning him to the table.

"I keep giving you chances to behave," she barked. "Are you really seriously trying to piss me off? Because you definitely have, and you  _know_  this can only end badly for you now."

"Yeah?" Danny's neck strained against her hold on him but he managed to give her a challenging smile. "You gonna stab my other eye? Or maybe cut off my ear?"

Maddie's stranglehold tightened briefly before she let go of him entirely. "No," she said, her tone becoming calm, even solemn. "I can't risk another uncalculated injury that you may not recover from." Her hand reached out for him again, the back of her knuckles gently brushing just below his damaged eye. "Keeping you in the condition I need for my research purposes has to come first."

She pulled the cap off his head and removed the clamps from his ears before walking out of his sight again, somewhere behind him. All he could hear was the sound of cabinets and drawers opening.

With nowhere else to look, Danny again focused on the ceiling, his chest growing tighter and tighter as the rummaging sounds continued.

She returned and set something that seemed quite heavy on the edge of the table between the top of his head and his shackled wrist. Danny craned his neck to get a look at it. A metal box?

With a small labored groan, Maddie pulled back the top half of the box, which was connected to the bottom half by a hinge. "Not sure why you keep asking for this, Phantom, but maybe you'll learn one of these nights that you cannot win here."

Before Danny could even begin to formulate a response, she lifted his head and moved the bottom half of the box under it, his neck resting in a contoured cutout. The upper half swung over and closed on top of him with heavy force, completely encasing his entire head.

It took him a moment to even realize what had just happened, what she had just done to him. He could hear the sound of a lock snapping shut somewhere near his ears but he could not  _see_  it, could not see  _anything_ past the austere walls of this box she had clamped over his head, solid barriers punctured in only a few spaces with small holes that filtered in light and air. His natural glow lit up its corners and showed him just how small this space was, just how confined he was.

His wrists pulled against his restraints, abrading on the harsh edges as they ached to reach over and pry this thing open. He gasped out hard, the sound muffled and unnatural against the shrill ringing in his ears.

Outside, he could hear walking and shuffling and scraping and then the familiar sound of the lab door opening and shutting. The light coming in through the holes of the box disappeared. Danny swallowed and tried to steady his breathing as he again ascertained the size of this newest imprisonment, not wanting to breathe too loudly in the horrifying acoustics of this space.

All of his pain was now amplified and throbbing, his eye and the cuts on his arms and sides and palms and the device inserted into the vein in his leg and the other device latched onto his neck partially paralyzing his vocal folds and his chest his CHEST had she done something to his chest why was his chest hurting so much?

He really needed to lie down but he was already lying down wasn't he?

These illuminated walls were so close to him, suffocating him. He closed his good eye to block them out.

If he couldn't see them, then he could pretend they weren't really there.

Just like if she couldn't see her son, then he could pretend she wasn't really hurting him.


	5. only when I'm with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting I can add notes here, sorry. D:
> 
> This fic is hard to write and then hard to edit but I have such great plans for it so I keep going. :3 Is it hard to read too?
> 
> Thanks to Chintastic and Lexosaurus for helping me out!

_Only when I'm with you._

He wanted to see. He wanted to see her. Just one more time.

...

Danny was still gone. And Maddie couldn't take it anymore. She had to leave, too.

Jack was asleep. Maddie looked down at his face in the dark midnight glow settled in their room. The past few days and especially that day, he had been quieter than she even knew he could be. Listless, smileless. Not like him at all. How heartbreaking it was for her to be missing both her son and her husband.

Her daughter was still here, though. Still the same, still talking, still asking questions. All about Danny, of course. Only about Danny. But at least Maddie had one child still under her roof, one family member that had not left her, had not changed.

She left the room and walked down the hall but stopped at her daughter's closed door. The light was off on the other side, but Maddie could hear Jazz's hushed voice. She would speak, pause, speak again, pause again. Had to be talking on the phone with someone. And Maddie normally would've knocked and opened the door and told her she needed to go to bed, but perhaps Jazz needed this right now. Perhaps Jazz needed to talk on the phone at this late hour to get through this troubling time.

Just like she needed to see Phantom. Again. Right now.

She walked away from Jazz's door and down the stairs and out to her car.

And everything that wasn't Phantom remained locked away behind her in the house.

She drove under orange street lamps and past rusted fences and through empty intersections before finally breaking beyond city limits and reaching Vlad's secluded lab. She locked her car and stared at the lonely building, wondering if Phantom was definitely still in there or if he had somehow managed to escape.

What if she walked in and he was gone? Gone just like her son?

_you can't think about your son right now._

She tapped in the keypad code and opened the heavy door to the building. She switched on the main light and entered the main area of the lab, smiling with relief at the sight of her prisoner still here, still in the exact position she had left him in.

She approached him on the main operating table and stared down at him. Wrists and legs still shackled, head still locked in the anti-ghost metal box. But he was not moving at all, no twitching fingers, no shuddering abdomen, no quivering knees.

She observed his chest, its mesmerizing rising and falling patterns.

He was still alive. He was still hers.

She studied his chest a moment longer before frowning at his famous logo. His suit was on again. But how? She had locked away the parts of his suit she had removed in an anti-ghost containment device. How was his suit covering him completely as if it had never been removed at all?

Her fingertips hovered over his lean abdomen, longing to press against him and feel his firm muscles tense in response.

But she instead withdrew her attention from him, opting to keep him locked in the head vice while she read over the QEEG report that had hopefully finished by now. She pulled up the results on Vlad's sleek computer screen and stared at each generated image with unblinking eyes. Z-scored fast Fourier transform, absolute power, relative power, amplitude asymmetry, coherence, delta waves, theta, alpha, beta, high beta, ratios.

And yet, these were still only a few of Phantom's secrets. He had so many more to tease out.

She moved back to the main operating table and delicately placed her hands on top of the vice box surrounding her ghostly captive's head. Not the cruelest thing she had done to him, but over twenty hours in this claustrophobic imprisonment was hopefully enough to make him think twice about misbehaving next time.

She removed the lock holding the vice together and swung the upper half up and over and away. He gasped loudly, his right eye wide and darting in all directions.

And his left eye…

Phantom's breathing calmed as his attention settled on her face, his paled lips regaining a bit of their normal teal color as they pursed into a frown. Maddie removed the lower half of the box from under his neck and placed her hands on his shoulders, her own lips curling into a giddy grin.

"Your eye! It looks so much better!" She moved from behind his head to his left side and placed her fingers on his brow and cheek. "It's not swollen anymore. And you're able to keep it open now without trouble."

She unhooked a flashlight from her belt and directed the beam at his eye. Many broken ecto-vessels still surrounded his marbled iris. A thick white slash ran right through the middle. "Can you see out of this eye now?"

No reply.

Maddie tapped his face reprovingly. "I asked you a question, Phantom."

His snowy eyelashes flitted. "No," he muttered. "I still see nothing out of this eye."

"Really? Still nothing?" Maddie switched off her flashlight to confirm that there was no glow in his left eye, no trace of any ethereal light. "Does it still hurt?"

"It feels like there's something stuck in there. Like a piece of glass or something."

Maddie gently prodded his eye to close to inspect for any signs of damage on his eyelid. It looked completely normal now, but it didn't change that she had gotten carried away with this act. She had wanted to make it clear to Phantom that she was in charge and that she could do whatever she wanted to him, but now her plans to study his eyes and vision were possibly ruined.

From now on, she had to be a good scientist. No more letting her emotions rule her actions. Everything needed to be calculated and considered first. She had to maintain control here in all aspects.

Maddie sighed and straightened up. "I really hope you get your vision back."

He gave her a sardonic smile. Maddie blinked at the display of such mockery, something she had never seen any other ghost exhibit.

She placed her fingers on his shoulder and pinched the dark fabric covering it. "How is your suit on again? When did this happen?"

Phantom huffed with a slight shake of his head. "I don't know. Why do you think I would know? I just wear it."

"I would think you'd know  _because_  you wear it."

"Well, I don't."

"You didn't feel it wrapping around your body? Your chest, your arms, your hands? Really?"

"I kind of had something else on my mind."

Maddie glanced at the vice box she had set aside. She looked back at him with a smile. "How was it in there?"

He narrowed his eyes, a chilled hue spreading across his nose and cheeks.

"That bad, huh?" Maddie laughed and moved so that she was behind his head again. "Yeah, I bet it wasn't fun."

She looked down at his head, at his dense silvery locks. A small clump of gel from the QEEG was clinging to a strand. She picked it out of his hair with her fingers, eliciting a hard shiver from him.

"There's a lot of gel in your hair." She proceeded to spread the strands around to reveal even more gel on his scalp. "I should probably wash it out before we do anything else."

Phantom creased his brow. "Wash?"

"Yes. I really shouldn't leave this in."

"You're...going to wash my hair?"

"Mmm hmm." Maddie pulled another clump of gel out of his hair before moving to the lab counters and gathering what she needed. Sink tray, ghost shampoo, fine-toothed comb, small towel.

"You really don't have to," said Phantom.

"I know, Phantom." Maddie brought her supplies over to the table. "I don't  _have_ to do anything. I get to choose what I do here, what I do to you." She lifted his head and set it down in the nook of the mobile sink tray. "And right now, I'm going to get this gel out of your hair."

Phantom stared blankly at the ceiling as she set to rinsing his hair with water.

"Ooh, and I can tell you about the results of your QEEG!" Maddie watched the illusory strands of his hair skate through her fingers. "Different from other ghosts and yet not entirely surprising to me. But then also similar to other ghosts. See, ghosts generally have too much beta activity, too little alpha, and too little theta. Too much beta results in anxiety and an inability to relax. Too little alpha results in obsessive compulsive tendencies—one of the most significant aspects of ghostly psychology, of course. Too little theta results in poor emotional awareness. Very classic ghost traits."

She poured some shampoo into her gloved palm and worked it into a lather before applying it to his hair.

"But you, yes, you have too much beta and too little alpha, just like a typical ghost. But then you have too  _much_  theta activity, which often results in inattentiveness, depression, and, well, in humans, it often indicates ADHD." She scrubbed at his scalp, massaged the shampoo through each lock of hair. "You also have some strong frontal beta asymmetry, often linked to anxiety. I need to run some more tests, make some comparisons. You definitely appear to be higher functioning than typical ghosts, and I want to investigate that more."

Phantom's face was blank. Not a single part of him moved. Maddie frowned.

"You heard everything I just said, right?" she asked as she began to rinse out the suds from his hair.

Phantom shrugged.

"How can you not find any of that completely fascinating?" demanded Maddie. "This is a direct biological link to your psychology!"

Phantom shrugged again.

Maddie shook her head and moved the sink tray aside. She ran the comb through his wet hair to make sure she had removed all traces of gel. "I just don't get it. You got a QEEG for free and you don't care about the results? This usually costs thousands of dollars."

Phantom stared up at her as she began rubbing the towel in gentle strokes over his scalp. "Are you expecting me to thank you?"

"I'm just expecting you to be interested. Most people never learn these things about the inner workings of their brains." She lay the towel under his head to keep the remaining moisture in his hair from dripping onto the table. "But then again, you're not a person. I guess maybe you're not always so good at imitating humans, huh?"

Phantom rolled his eyes and turned his head away from her, a grand gesture so aggressively moody it was actually comical, something he had no doubt seen other teenagers do and was merely mimicking. Maddie chuckled. She had never seen any other ghost act like this and yet it seemed completely in character for Phantom. So like him. Would not have expected anything less from him. Would've been disappointed with anything less, honestly.

It was all an imitation, yes. She knew that. But regardless, it was an imitation he was appropriating for his specific ghostly purposes, an imitation that was still uniquely him, an imitation she was set on studying just as much as his anatomy and biology and physiology. She would continue to let him get away with being snarky and passive aggressive to suit her own scientific purposes of figuring out why he acted the way he did.

He could make any snide remarks or rude gestures he wanted and she'd eagerly record them all in her notes.

Provided they weren't related to a certain topic. Her son—

_not here._

She put away all of the hair-washing supplies before returning to Phantom's side with a pair of anti-ghost metal scissors. "I have a lot I want to accomplish with you tonight. The first being some full body MRI and CT scans." She latched on to the zipper at his neck. "Which means this has to come off completely."

She studied his face as she pulled the zipper down his torso in a smooth glide, exposing a masculine trail of hair glowing like optical fiber. A peridot sheen lit up his cheekbones.

He was actually blushing. He was certainly just experiencing fear or stress, but he sure was good at manipulating his features to appear like he was embarrassed.

"Most ghosts have no shame about this," she noted with amusement. "Shame is primarily a human characteristic, after all. But as usual, your display of a human emotion is very authentic. Almost convincing."

She placed her hands against his pectoral muscles under the fabric of his suit and spread the separated halves as far she could. His veins spidered in faint traces along his sternum and breast and up to his neck. Fibrous scars decorated his skin in wandering patterns.

"But also as usual, none of your ploys are going to stop me."

She removed the top half of his suit in sections with the anti-ghost scissors, pulling his gloves out of the restraints, baring everything. All of the experimental incisions she had inflicted on his sides and arms were fully healed now, leaving behind either no marks at all or very faint scars. Perfect. Now she could definitely cut him open without holding back.

She moved lower and cut the fabric along his thighs and calves, casting off his boots, revealing the device she had latched into his lower left leg that continuously pumped the Fenton Ghost Solidifier into his ecto-stream. His nearly invisible hair stood tall all over his shins.

Maddie took in the entire sight of his exposed spectral form. On his back, wrists and legs cuffed to the table, his skin glowing so bright, brighter than she had ever seen it glow before. Such a pretty jade tint washing over his complexion.

"Don't worry." She tugged lightly at the hem of his shaped boxers. "I'll leave these on."

Phantom's face only turned greener as he scowled.

Maddie scooped all the fragments of Phantom's suit into her arms. "All right,  _this_  time, I am going to lock these up in a containment device that completely neutralizes ghost abilities. See if that will prevent it from mending itself and getting back to you."

She began to walk away but caught sight of Phantom's changed expression. A smirk. A show of humor. As if something was actually  _funny_  to him.

"What?" she asked with one cocked brow. "What are you smiling about?"

Phantom hummed. "You just seem very determined to keep my clothes off."

Maddie's neck warmed as her grip tightened on the suit fragments. His irreverent gibes and testy remarks usually just made her chuckle and gave her something to think about in regard to his psychology, but this was something else, this was going too far, this was making an implication that she could not let him get away with.

She hit the side of his face. His cheek colored with the force of her slap but his cocky grin remained.

She quickly walked away from him with her head down and placed his jumpsuit in Vlad's neutralizing anti-ghost containment chamber. She switched it on and listened to its rhythmic humming, her breathing aligning with it.

"This is going to make Vlad's power bill skyrocket," she said softly. "I really hope he doesn't hate me for this."

She checked all the settings, adjusted them as needed for her purposes.

"He could never hate you," said Phantom in a low murmur.

Maddie turned back to him sharply. Surely she had misheard. No way Phantom had actually made such an utterance.

From where she could see him now, at this angle, his expression seemed to have once again changed. The smirk was gone, replaced with something pensive and melancholy.

A remarkable actor.

She filled a needled syringe with a spectral muscle relaxant and returned to him. Bared and laid out just for her use. Exactly as she'd been picturing him in her dreams. So exactly like it that she had to mentally convince herself that this was reality.

His eyes were directed at the ceiling, seemingly focused on nothing. She touched his arm but was unable to elicit a response. So odd. At times she couldn't get him to shut up and at other times he seemed hardly present at all.

She held up the syringe, bringing him to full attention immediately. His eyes twitched.

"Just a mild muscle relaxant, Phantom." Maddie pinched his upper arm and pushed in the needle. "You won't be completely paralyzed, just very weak."

His head was already lolling as she pulled out the needle and tossed the whole syringe into the nearby trash receptacle. She pressed lightly on his abdomen until she could no longer feel his muscles tensing in response.

A limp doll ready for play.

She unshackled him, lowered the height of the table, then lifted him by the arm and torso, heaving his weight over her shoulder. She groaned as she steadied his body against hers.

"Okay, now see, normally, my husband would be here to help with this." Maddie chattered breathily as she maneuvered him to the large X-ray and MRI machines against the far wall of the lab. "He's really big, really strong. He could've easily carried you if you were here. Wouldn't have even needed to weaken or sedate you first. As long as your powers were disabled, you'd have no way to get out of his grasp. But me, well, I'm strong too, of course, but I'm also smart and I know when it's better to play it safe. I need to keep you as weak as possible."

Phantom's head hung low, his face almost drooping. Effects of the muscle relaxant? Or was he really just this unengaged with her?

She almost wished Jack were here. Phantom made for a terrible conversational partner.

She locked him into various positions inside and against Vlad's powerful scanning machines, injecting him with dyes to enhance the clarity of the images. All scans required him to be very still, which was no problem with his temporary weakness.

But his silence and lack of revolt seemed so uncharacteristic. He could speak if he wanted to but was merely choosing to be quiet.

He was now propped up and belted to a faux wall opposite a scanning device that captured digital X-ray images of his full body. She studied his blank face, his empty eyes.

Brainwaves could never tell her what he was really thinking. And what she'd give to somehow rip his brain apart and pull out all his thoughts in tangible ribbons.

But science was never that simple. And that was what she loved most about it.

She pored over all the generated images of what was inside him, his organs, his nerves, his bones, all the things she was eager to see directly with her own eyes. But she had to wait, had to map him out first so that she could plan the best way to dissect him, where to start, major arteries to be mindful of, anything and everything she needed to know in order to keep him alive during the process.

So human, so incredibly human. The magnetic resonance and computed tomography images showed all of the internal features she'd expect to see in a typical human body. Sizing, placement, organ types, vessels. Nothing was unusual in terms of human anatomy.

She looked over at him again. Threads of pulsating light oscillated above his skin in ethereal waves.

Phantom was definitely a ghost.

Perhaps this was just part of his ghostly abilities, the power to imitate humans so well not just in manner and speech but also in physical appearance, inside and out. The power to fool humans into believing he was truly one of them so that he could manipulate them into doing whatever he wanted.

Well. His tricks would never work on her. He was  _not_  human no matter how convincing his display, his appearance. He was only a ghost. Her ghost. Her prisoner. Her specimen.

She stared at the X-ray images of his bones again. Bones. Actual bones. She knew ghosts had them—after all,  _something_  had to give them form—but the way they moved and shapeshifted made them almost impossible to break, not like human bones that only needed the right pressure at the right angle to snap clean in half.

But with his ghostly molecular changes disabled and his bones no longer pliable, she wondered if the amount of force to break them would be similar to the force it'd take to break human bones. What sort of physics could be applied to him in this state? Just how humanlike was he in this regard?

She approached his weakened body held upright only by restraints. She unbelted his left wrist and held his hand in hers, inspected all of its parts. The feel of his knuckles, the length of his fingers, the give of his palm's ghostly flesh, the bulge of his glimmering veins as they flooded with ectoplasm.

"Have you ever broken a bone before, Phantom?" she asked as she squeezed the base of his index finger.

Phantom lifted his head just a little. "What?" he moaned.

"Your bones." She continued to put pressure on his finger, gently bent it forward and then back. Once, twice, each time pushing it backwards a little farther. "Have you ever broken one before?"

"Why...why do you ask?"

"Your natural ghost abilities to become intangible or shapeshift probably make fractures rare. I was just wondering if you had ever managed to break something."

Phantom was quiet for a long beat. Maddie pushed his finger back far enough to make him wince.

"I—I don't—" He drew in a long, shaking breath. "I mean, yes, I have, but—it wasn't—I mean—"

"Really? You have?" Maddie hummed to herself. "Did it break easily?"

"I—I don't really remem—why are you—"

"I'm just wondering how much force I'd have to apply to break this. With all your bizarre humanlike qualities, I'm wondering if you're as fragile as any human with your powers disabled or if you still have some spectral resilience."

Maddie took a firm hold of the back of his hand and grasped his finger.

"Only one way to find out."

She pushed hard on his finger, forced it in the direction it was not designed to be bent in. She paused for a short moment before bracing herself to bend it back with quick force and pressure. She'd have to extract one of his bones at some point to do any real analysis, but for now, simply seeing what force was needed to break a small bone would not hinder any of her plans tonight.

She paused again, her hold on his still unbroken finger relaxing.

Phantom's breathing sounded odd. His arms were shaking far more than they should've been in his weakened state. His whole body was slumping and would have fallen forward if not for the restraints holding him to the faux wall. The belt around his right wrist was cutting into his skin and drawing small droplets of ectoplasm.

She dropped his hand and pushed against his shoulders to hold him up, lifted his chin so she could see his face. "What's going on? What are you feeling?"

Phantom kept his eyes on the floor. All that emerged when he spoke were breathy sentence fragments.

She observed the shuddering motions of his chest. "Are you...wow, are you hyperventilating?" Her mouth fell open in a wide grin. "You are, aren't you! I've never seen a ghost hyperventilate before. Hang on, wait, I'll be right back."

She rebelted his left wrist to the wall before dashing to one of the cabinets and hastily grabbing the machine she needed. She returned to his trembling form, pleased to see he was still struggling to balance his breathing.

She clamped a pulse oximeter on his finger and held up the machine it was wirelessly connected to. She bounced on her toes as the readings appeared: respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, carbon dioxide concentration. She referred to her previous notes for the base readings she had recorded and jotted down the new observations she was seeing here.

"Your levels of carbon dioxide in your ectoplasm are much lower than they usually are," jabbered Maddie. "You're definitely hyperventilating. Just—wow—I've never seen this before. This is incredible."

Phantom gasped and heaved. "Can—can you—please, I need to lie down, please—"

He gasped again, his knees buckling, his body crumpling, forced to stay upright by the restraints holding him in place. Maddie hesitated for only a moment before releasing the belts cuffing him and guiding him to lie on the floor. She got what she needed. No sense allowing him to pass out right now.

She pulled the oximeter off his finger and sat on her knees beside his head. "What are you feeling?" she asked quietly but with authority.

He lifted his arms a short distance before they fell again with a hard thud. "My hands are...tingling. Really bad. So much," he rasped out in harsh whispers.

"Really? Seriously? They are?" Maddie pressed her fingers together in triumph. "That's what commonly happens to humans when we hyperventilate. It's what happens when the carbon dioxide concentration is too low in the blood—or in your case, ectoplasm. That's incredible. Really, for a ghost to have that sort of physiological response, it's something I've never seen and am just  _so_  excited about."

She watched him pull in a deep breath that rattled his breast and then expel it in a short burst just to pull in another deep breath. He looked so uncomfortable, in so much pain.

How completely entrancing.

After another minute of giddy observation, it became clear to Maddie that Phantom was not going to figure out how to rebalance his breathing on his own. At this rate, he was going to faint.

She looked across the lab at the other equipment she wanted to use before she left for the night.

She couldn't let him pass out right now. She had work to do. And she needed him in good condition if she wanted the best results.

She could've watched him struggle for hours. But the integrity of her research had to come first.

She moved closer to him, gently lifting his head and placing it in her lap. "All right, here, let me help you out."

She placed slender gloved fingers on the side of his face and on the vocal paralyzing device latched to his neck. Phantom looked up at her with a bleary gaze. One of her fingers brushed close to his damaged eye; its clouded appearance was almost pretty.

"You have to slow down your breathing," she said calmly. "Your oxygen input and carbon dioxide output levels are unbalanced. That's what's making you feel bad, that's why your hands are tingling. You're breathing in too deeply and then breathing out too quickly. Try to slow down both your inhales and exhales and make them even. That will restore the balance."

Phantom languorously blinked before closing his eyes and slowing his respiration, each breath still shuddering audibly through his spectral lungs. Maddie stole a glance at his quivering hands before returning her attention to his face.

"The Ghost Zone and Earth are two sides of the same coin," she murmured, absently smoothing back a few strands of his hair. "We breathe the same way, the same air. The Ghost Zone has the same atmospheric make-up as Earth. That's why ghosts can breathe here without a problem, why humans can be in the Ghost Zone without protective suits or helmets. And that's why it makes sense for hyperventilation to have the same physiological effects for ghosts as it does for humans. Isn't that just fascinating?"

Phantom's breathing was much calmer now. His hands were twitching at his sides but were much stiller than before.

"But like I said, I've never actually  _seen_ a ghost hyperventilate before." Maddie pressed a finger to his neck to check his pulse. Normal for a human but quick for a ghost. "Ghosts do not usually exhibit such panic even in response to extreme torture. Pain, oh yes, they'll show signs of being in pain and distress. But not panic. Certainly nothing like what I just saw from you."

Phantom's eyes partly opened. "Do you think I was faking it?"

"There's no way you could've faked that," said Maddie. "I was actually able to measure your physiological response, and you could not have possibly faked that."

Phantom's brow furrowed. Maddie chuckled at his reaction.

"The outward display of your fear and panic is imitation, yes," she explained. "Things like your tone of voice, what you say, your expression, those are all imitations of what you've seen humans do, imitations you use to try to manipulate humans into feeling a connection with you, sympathy or empathy, so that you can get us to do what you want. But your physiological responses like heart rate and respiratory rate and carbon dioxide concentration, it is unlikely that you have conscious control over those. No, I believe those are not imitations but rather your biological survival instincts at work, self-preservation behavior to help you survive."

She watched his face closely. He seemed to be considering her words. Probably wondering how he could use this new information to his advantage. Not that she'd ever let him trick her, but it'd be amusing to see him try.

"I have to admit that your imitation of outward emotional responses is far more poignant and realistic than what I've seen from any other ghost," said Maddie quietly, once again playing with strands of his shimmering hair. "Your displays of emotion do seem almost real at times. And truthfully, I am willing to admit when one of my hypotheses is wrong. That's why you're here, after all. So I can test my hypotheses and see if they are correct or not. If I wasn't willing to entertain the idea that I could be wrong, there'd be no point in testing you for anything."

His mouth fell open.

Maddie playfully tapped his cheek a couple times. "I don't think I'm wrong, though." She moved his head off her lap and stood. "Well, now that your breathing is under control again, let's move on to the next experiment, shall we?"

Phantom was still lying on his back and not moving at all. The muscle relaxant was still in effect, good.

She stared at him, feeling a strange disconnect from her surroundings, from herself. His gleaming skin, his dazzling hair, all right here for her to touch at any time. And he could not stop her.

It was difficult at times to convince herself this was real, that this boy—this man—this  _ghost_ really did belong to her now. Someone once so powerful reduced to her property.

Like conquering God.

She looked at the other end of the lab where the environmental chamber was located. She sighed deeply before looking down at Phantom again.

Well. He wasn't going to get to the other side of the lab on his own.

She bent down and lugged him over her shoulder again, groaning with his weight as she dragged him across the lab, sweating with the effort. Phantom's head rested against her, his hair feeling like cool smoke inside her ear.

She heaved him into the environmental chamber, caught her breath, then secured him with the restraints inside so that he'd remain upright. She attached sensors to his chest and head and ensured they were all properly reading his ghostly vitals. Her hands shook as she finished all preparations.

This was...fun. Enjoyable. She had never had this much fun with any other specimen before.

His head hung low, dropped onto his chest which was now gently expanding and contracting in calm rhythm. She kept the door to the chamber open for some time, waiting for him to perhaps raise his head and make eye contact with her, some act of defiance or rebellion.

His silence and lack of resistance seemed strange. Not like him at all.

She closed the chamber door and positioned herself at the control panel. Perhaps she could find a way to make him break his silence, draw some screams through his partially numbed vocal cords. She liked a challenge.

She began slowly, gently, easily. She had to be careful when testing his limits, could not allow him to break or succumb too soon. She had so much more planned for him, so much more to put him through. To force him through.

He handled the low temperatures quite well. She watched him closely with each fraction of a lowered degree, adjusting slowly in the beginning before decreasing the intervals between temperature changes. She played with the humidity but ignored the other more extreme settings for now. She certainly wanted to try out the vacuum and altitude and electromagnetic radiation and electrodynamic vibration settings oh YES she wanted to try them all! but she had to keep the variables low for now. That would allow for more precise results and data she could work with to inform future tests.

The temperature dropped in the chamber. For the longest time, he showed almost no reaction to the climatic changes. The temperature approached freezing, dropped below freezing. He was still mostly unresponsive and unmoving.

Maddie pouted. Well,  _this_  was disappointing and not at all exciting. Sure, it was normal for ghosts to resist these low temperatures, but Phantom's body temperature was so much higher than the average ghost's temperature. She had been expecting some sort of reaction by now at least, some sort of indication that the cold was starting to affect him. To hurt him.

She dipped the temperature lower and lower until something changed, until something spiked in his vitals. His complexion ashened, tiny pinpricks of muscular contraction dotted his skin, quick shivers tore through his limbs and chest.

She lowered the temperature even more, watching the convulsions in his body strengthen and lengthen, his muscles stiffen, his dark lips quiver, his teeth chatter, his eyes shut tight.

The only thing that could've made this reaction more beautiful was screaming.

She began increasing the temperature, moving it up and up and up above freezing and then higher, surpassing the temperature at which most ghosts began to exhibit discomfort. Phantom seemed okay at these higher temperatures, which was more aligned with what she expected considering his body temperature. He had managed to surprise her by handling the cold temperatures so well, but this, his resistance to higher temperatures, this made sense.

The moment he stopped handling the heat so well was sudden, quick, an immediate change in his breathing, oxygen levels, and posture. His head drooped, his wrists strained against the shackles that held him up, his deep gasps resounded within the chamber.

Maddie took note of the appearance of his skin, the noticeable lack of sweat, the rush of ectoplasm flooding his complexion. She made the temperature climb even more. His respiration became even more ragged, his heart rate climbed, his coloring turned even greener.

He was on the verge of losing consciousness again.

Thrilling.

She gradually brought the temperature back down and watched his vital signs closely for indications of improving stability. She had every intention of pushing him past his limits eventually. But not now. No, first she needed to find his limits so that she could methodically push him past them later. She had to do all she could to keep him in good condition for as long as possible. After all, she had so many plans for him. He needed to survive for at least a few weeks.

She switched off the climate chamber, opened the door, and unlocked the restraints that held him up. He fell forward beyond the door onto his hands and knees, the sensors connected to his skin ripping away and dangling inside the chamber.

Maddie watched him heave and gasp while his arms and legs provided shaky support. The muscle relaxant was probably starting to wear off. She glanced back at the counter where all of the medications and drugs were kept, debating whether she should give him another paralytic injection.

She returned her attention to Phantom, observed the movement of his back muscles and shoulder blades as his breaths evened and quieted. Every contraction, every ripple, every wave under his skin, so lovely in their sporadic oscillations.

"Is this it?" His voice was hoarse, his head low as he spoke to the floor. "Are you done for now?"

His position on his hands and knees, his distraught tone.

This was not a mere question. He was begging her to give him the answer he wanted.

Maddie stared down at his shuddering form a while longer.

"No," she said. "I'm not done yet."

He raised his head just enough that she could see his expression, so crushed, crestfallen, despairing.

She simply had to smile.

"Really, Phantom." She chuckled and placed her hands on her hips. "This was not even the worst thing I've done to you so far. And I certainly plan on doing worse in the future. You might want to think about toughening up."

He raised his head even more. A hateful glare crossed over his countenance, causing his non-damaged eye to flash. She smirked in triumph. A show of resistance,  _finally_ , here he was. The Phantom she knew, the Phantom she wanted here, the Phantom she wanted to force through test after procedure after experiment.

The Phantom she absolutely was not yet done with for the night.

She moved him into a small soundproofed room, his body and muscles still weak enough for her to control. She shackled his arms and legs to the chair in the room, secured his torso in such a way that he would not be able to slump even in his debilitated state.

After taking a quick look inside each of his ear canals using an otoscope, she set a pair of headphones over his ears and positioned the microphone in front of his mouth. She placed a button device in each of his hands and wrapped their straps over his fingers and wrists so that he'd have no way to let go of them.

She looked him over. He refused to make any eye contact with her.

The silence in the room became so much louder. No echoes. A small breath, a rustling of clothes, everything was so uncomfortably loud.

Vlad's anechoic chamber was certainly far more advanced than the one she and Jack had set up at Fenton Works. And she needed to get out of here. Being in this room was almost painful.

She gave Phantom one final look before leaving him alone and shutting the door.

In the observation room directly across from the chamber, she switched on the computer and opened up the programs she needed. She put on her head and mic set and looked through the separating window at Phantom. His vacant gaze was aimed low.

"Phantom, can you hear me?" she asked into her microphone.

Phantom did not reply.

"I'm going to test your hearing," said Maddie. "It will be very straightforward. All you need to do is listen for the beeping sounds. When you hear something in your right ear, press the button in your right hand. Left ear, button in left hand. Do you understand?"

No reply.

"It's nice you're so humanlike," continued Maddie. "Jack and I once had to figure out how to do this with a ghost that had nine ears. But you, you make things so simple for me."

Phantom's eyes raised and glared right at her through the window. Confirmation that he could definitely hear her, good.

Maddie played the first sound, a mid-frequency tone of moderate volume in his left ear. Phantom did not respond. She played the tone again a little louder. Still no response.

"Phantom," she said sternly. "I know you can hear this first tone."

Phantom looked off to the side.

"You were so keen on being done before," said Maddie. "The sooner you cooperate with me, the sooner I'll leave for the night."

Maddie played another tone, but Phantom still pressed neither button.

"Phantom!" Maddie growled. "Fine. I gave you a chance."

Using a control panel set up on the desk next to the computer, she sent a signal to the button devices in his hands. He reacted to the resulting electric shocks immediately, his body jumping and his eyes shutting tight as he yelped and hissed.

"Do you want to let me know if you can hear this tone now?"

Maddie played the sound again, made it even louder this time. He stared at the button in his left hand, his lips pressed with distress, conflict.

She sent another shock of higher current to the devices in his hands. Phantom convulsed and cried out, his raspy voice still sounding somewhat echoey even in the insulated chamber. She could hear him panting into his microphone.

"Here it is again, Phantom. I can do this for as long as you want."

Maddie played the tone again and waited. Phantom's hands were shaking, his lips quivering. His eyes appeared somewhat misty, his damaged left eye looking even more deluged with broken ecto-vessels than before.

"Still not going to cooperate?" Maddie sighed. "All right, Phantom. Up to you."

She moved to send another shock his way but paused when something new appeared on her computer screen: an affirming signal from the device in Phantom's left hand.

She looked through the window again. Phantom's eyes were unfocused but drooping. The corners of his mouth were trembling.

She had never seen him look this sad before. Hell, she had never seen  _any_  ghost look this sad before. Such a genuine display of defeat and despondence.

There was something so strangely familiar about this display, this exact expression on his face. Like she had seen it somewhere before. Her heartbeat quickened.

But he was only a ghost. No matter how convincing his show of emotion was, it was still only an imitation. She had to ignore her human feelings of sympathy. She could not let a ghost trick her into thinking he deserved any.

She continued the test, playing tones at various frequencies and volumes. Phantom surrendered completely and responded with button presses appropriately. But his expression never changed. It only seemed to get sadder.

She wished she understood why he kept trying to present imitated emotions to her. Perhaps he just couldn't help it. Perhaps it was an obsessive compulsive act he could not give up.

She glanced at him through the window once more before resolving to keep her focus on the computer screen instead.

Once the test was complete, she printed the results and studied them before leaving the control room and rejoining her captive in the anechoic chamber. He did not acknowledge her presence.

"Do you want to know how you did?" Maddie removed his headphone set and the button devices in his hands. "Your hearing is on par with the average hearing abilities of a human teen or young adult. Which is what I was expecting considering that your ears appeared very normal for a human when I looked in your canals earlier."

Phantom continued to be completely unresponsive, his depressed demeanor from earlier now changing into something sulkier. She was reminded of how Danny would act while she lectured him about some misbehavior or disobedience—

_stop, change the subject_

She placed a loose fist against her chin as she tried to decide the best way to conduct her final test. His arms and legs were still shackled to the chair. His head was forward and hanging, his shining bangs obscuring his face.

She didn't want to move him again. The muscle relaxant appeared to have worn off completely judging by his controlled position in the chair. She'd have to inject him again if she wanted to move him. That or she'd have to use the Fenton Thermos and then wait for him to regain consciousness. And she was pretty tired by this point, didn't want to wait.

And she definitely wanted him awake for this last task of the night.

She decided to leave him chained to this chair and moved out of the soundproofed room to rummage around Vlad's lab and find anything that would work for her plan. A low folding table was in one of the closets—okay, that would work. A few cinder blocks were on the floor of the hardware closet. She wasn't sure why Vlad had cinder blocks, but sure, one of those would work great. In the same closet hanging on a wall was a sturdy sledgehammer. Perfect. And a thick sturdy belt from one of the cabinets completed her quest.

She lugged the supplies into the anechoic chamber, panting as she set down the heavy cinder block. Phantom's head lifted at the sound of the heavy thud. His head raised even more as Maddie brought in the other items, his expression immediately morphing into alarm.

"Please forgive the crudity here." Maddie positioned the low folding table in front of him. It reached a height just below his knees. "I would normally do this in a more controlled manner, but I don't want to move you again, and I'm sure I can get this to work here."

She unshackled his right leg and set it on the low table, stretching it out in front of him. She heaved the cinder block onto the table and placed it against his knee, using the belt to secure it in place. She then picked up the sledgehammer and lightly tapped different parts of his lower leg, calculating the best point at which to swing.

"What are you doing?" asked Phantom, low hysteria evident in his tone.

"I really did want to break your finger before, you know. Before you distracted me with your hyperventilating." Maddie held the sledgehammer at various heights, mapping out the arc in her head. "I want to get an idea of the strength of your bones with your powers disabled. And of course, I want to see how they might heal on their own."

She had no idea what sort of force she would need. Perhaps she should just give it her all.

"Wait, please." Phantom's partially devoiced plea echoed only minimally with ghostly descant. "I did what you wanted. I didn't even mention—I mean—I don't want to say it, but I didn't mention—"

"My son?" Maddie finished for him. "You're right. You didn't. And I probably would've broken both legs if you did, so you can consider that your reward for good behavior."

She held the sledgehammer high. She could see Phantom's face out of the corner of her eye, his mouth open in a frozen display of shock. She focused on her decided mark as she brought down the hammer and slammed it right above his ankle. His lower leg popped out of position with a gorgeous  _crack!_  Ectoplasm splattered over the table and against the cinder block and onto the floor and even across her suit. A gleaming bone splinter protruded through a tear in his skin, streams of ectoplasm dribbling along its length.

Phantom was now slumped in the chair, his head back and his spine reclined. Not the first time she had managed to make him pass out. He didn't last long after she slit his eye either.

She stared at his leg again. His fibula bone would possibly need resetting, but for now, she'd leave it until the next day, see if perhaps his ghostly healing powers would somehow reset it on its own. It was worth a try.

He returned to consciousness just as she freed his leg from the cinder block. He began vocally expressing his distress almost immediately, no words, not even attempts at words, just screaming strings of frantic sounds. Maddie moved her tools out of the room and began cleaning up the rest of the lab, wiping down tables and counters and equipment and putting away supplies. All the while, she listened to Phantom's moans and cries.

Good thing she had thought to partially paralyze his vocal cords or else his ghostly wail would've probably destroyed half the lab by now.

She returned to the soundproofed room and cleaned the splattered ectoplasm using disinfectant. Phantom's loud anguish quieted into breathy whimpers. Once all of the ectoplasm was gone, she stood and stretched, yawned. It was definitely time for her to go home and hopefully get a couple hours of sleep. She briefly considered moving Phantom back to the operating table before deciding she was far too tired now. He was shackled securely to the chair already; no need to move him anywhere else.

She brought in an IV pole and drip system and quickly set up a line into his arm. No way was she going to let him get dehydrated again, especially not after such a traumatic injury. She checked the device on his left leg containing the Fenton Solidifier to ensure there was enough to keep his powers disabled. She looked him over a final time, making sure she hadn't missed anything, that he was ready to be alone for another twenty or so hours.

"If you start hyperventilating again," said Maddie, "just remember what I told you. You need to keep your breaths even and slow."

Phantom ducked his head with a low sob.

She shut off the light and left him alone. She debated closing the door and locking him up completely in the painfully silent room—would certainly be interesting to see how well he did—but she really didn't want to risk returning to a drooling cataleptic. Perhaps she'd try locking him up in here when he didn't have an agonizing injury to deal with at the same time.

She kept the door to the anechoic chamber wide open and did a final visual sweep of the lab before leaving entirely.

She stood outside the lab building and breathed in the fresh night air that smelled of spring.

And now everything that was not Danny had to remain locked away behind her.


End file.
